Discovery of man’s body prompts homicide inquiry DELAY
POMPANO BEACH — Gunfire disturbed the early-morning quiet of a Pompano Beach neighborhood twice Tuesday, when an anonymous call to 911 led deputies to a man’s body, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said.
The dead man, described only as in his 50s and injured by “apparent gunshot wounds,” was found at about 6:40 a.m. outside single-story apartments in the 2700 block of Northwest Sixth Street, sheriff’s spokeswoman Gina Carter said.
Pompano Beach Fire Rescue pronounced the man dead, an agency spokeswoman said.
“Right now, detectives are going through evidence, speaking to individuals to try and determine what happened here,” Carter said.
“He does not live at this apartment complex or on this block.”
She said homicide detectives were withholding the man’s identity.
The reports of gunfire in the Collier City neighborhood, north ofWest Atlantic Boulevard and between Florida’s Turnpike and Powerline Road, were “another piece of the puzzle,” Carter said.
“Detectives are looking at any other activity that may have happened in this neighborhood earlier in the morning to see if there is any connection or correlation between those incidents and his death,” she said.
The
sheriff’s
office
asks anyone with information to call Detective BryanTutler at 954-321-4281 or Broward County Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.
The organization will accept anonymous tips, and pay up to $3,000 for
tips that lead to an arrest.
Staff Photographer Joe Cavaretta contributed to this report. ltrischitta@Tribune.com, 954-356-4233 or Twitter @LindaTrischitta Florida courts have decided who will live and who will die.
“We’ve got substantial inequality in Florida in what happens,” said Justice Barbara Pariente. Florida is “an outlier, which is a significant problem.”
JusticeR. Fred Lewis suggested that Florida’s system seems capricious, that some murder defendants are executed while others are spared.
“There’s got to be something in the law that’s beyond technicalities,” he said.
The hearing was the first public session by the court, which must decide how to implement the new high court ruling.
Legal experts disagree on whether it should be interpreted narrowly or broadly. At stake: how many inmates it affects.
Many experts say it’s a good bet that it applies to each condemned prisoner who has not exhausted his appeals. That could be roughly 60 percent of the 390 people on Florida’s death row. Lambrix has exhausted his appeals.
Tuesday’s hearing was about whether the new U.S. Supreme Court decision applies to him.
Browne argued that it does not and, just as he should get no benefit, neither should any other deathrow inmate who has exhausted appeals.
He urged justices to rule that the high court ruling corrected a procedural error, not a substantive one, and that it not be applied retroactively.
Justice Charles Canady noted the Florida high court ruled that another key U.S. Supreme Court decision on the death penalty was not retroactive.
“I don’t see howthat analysis is going to be any different nowthan itwas then, …” he said.
If it rules this is retroactive, Canady said the court would be reversing itself.
Several minutes later, Lewis told Browne, “We can be wrong. You have to be big enough to admit it.”
If the court decides it is retroactive, thatwouldmean everyone on Florida’s death rowwould be affected. They could be ordered to return to the county courthouses where they were convicted fornewsentencing hearings.
“Everybody should get the benefit of it,” said McClain.
Pariente noted that some cases are 30 years old and that it would be hard to provide new jurors with the same evidence that original jurors heard.
Browne described that possible outcome as “a catastrophic application” that would bog down trial courts across the state and be a burdento the families ofmurder victims, who have already suffered tragic losses.
McClain argued that everyone on Florida’s death row should now have his sentence changed to life in prison.
“This is not procedural. This is substantive,” he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court threw out Florida’s death penalty statute, ruling that jurors, not a judge, must specifically identify why someone convicted of a capital crime should be put to death. Under Florida’s nowdefunct system, jurors were required to make a sentencing recommendation. Their vote did not have to be unanimous and a judge made a ruling.
In the nearby Florida House of Representatives, the Criminal Justice Subcommittee is working on a rewrite of Florida’s death penalty statute that would correct the problem identified by the U.S. Supreme Court and make other changes that would bring Florida more in line with other states.
The bill favored by subcommittee Chairman Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, would require that at least nine jurors agree that a defendant should get the death penalty.
rstutzman@tribpub.com or 407-650-6394