Justices order new trials for 2 Florida Death Row inmates
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday ordered new trials for two Death Row inmates, including for a man convicted in the murders of a Broward County couple after his mother provided key testimony.
In unusual moves, justices overturned the convictions of Peter Avsenew in the 2010 murders in Broward County and of Jason Simpson, convicted of killing a drug dealer and the dealer’s pregnant girlfriend in 1999 in Duval County.
In both cases, the Supreme Court found that judges made errors that required new trials. Avsenew was sentenced to death in 2018, while Simpson was sentenced in 2007.
Avsenew was convicted in the shooting deaths of Steven Adams and Kevin Powell and taking the couple’s sport-utility vehicle and money. Avsenew, who had been staying with the couple, drove to Polk County, where his mother, Jeanne Avsenew, lived.
After a series of circumstances, including Avsenew telling his mother he was driving a stolen SUV, she did a computer search and found that he was a “person of interest” in the murders, according to the Supreme Court ruling. She contacted police, and Avsenew was subsequently arrested.
But Thursday’s ruling centered on video testimony of Jeanne Avsenew that was used in her son’s trial. The appeal did not take issue with video testimony, which is allowed under a court rule if a witness is unable to attend a trial.
Justices, however, said the set-up of the equipment used in the testimony prevented Jeanne Avsenew from seeing her son. That violated a rule that says courts must “keep the defendant in the presence of the witness.”
In the unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court said it “does not take lightly the impact of today’s decision.
However, the introduction of Ms. Avsenew’s testimony constituted harmful error, and we are bound to rule in a manner that remedies such error.”
In the Duval County case, the Supreme Court said Simpson should receive a new trial because prosecutors did not disclose that a witness against him was a confidential informant for the state.
Simpson was convicted in the murders of drug dealer Archie Howard Crook and Crook’s pregnant girlfriend, Kimberli Kimbler. They were hacked to death with an ax in the bedroom of their home, according to the Supreme Court ruling.
The witness whose work as an informant had not been disclosed was Crook’s son, Archie Clyde Crook — identified in the ruling as “Little Archie.” Simpson’s defense attorneys argued during the trial that Little Archie had killed his father and Kimbler.
Little Archie had served as an informant against another man, George Michael Durrance, who was described in the ruling as being an associate of the Crook father and son and Simpson in the drug trade.
Durrance also was a figure in the Simpson murder case, and the Supreme Court, in a 5-1 decision, said Little Archie’s role as a confidential informant should have been disclosed.
The majority opinion said the “relationship between Simpson, Little Archie, and Durrance was of critical importance in this case, and the information Little Archie provided to law enforcement pertaining to Durrance casts a different light on this relationship.”