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CASES

By Jeffrey Ivashuk

Contempt -- Criminal -- Juveniles -- Trial court not prohibited from imposing consecutive sentences for each instance of direct criminal contempt -- Section 985.037 limits sentence for a second or subsequent offense to fifteen days, but nothing in statute states that multiple instances of direct contempt cannot be separately punished with consecutive sentences of fifteen days of confinement for each offense -- ConflictReported at 33 Fla. L. Weekly D381a Criminal law -- Murder -- Sentencing -- Death penalty -- Aggravating circumstances -- Avoidance of lawful arrest -- Although evidence reflected that defendant may have had several motives for killing victim, it did not support finding that defendant's dominant motive was to avoid arrest -- Trial court erred in finding avoid arrest aggravator -- Proportionality -- In view of fact that death sentence rests on single aggravating circumstance, that defendant was contemporaneously convicted of another violent felony, and in view of substantial mental health mitigation presented, including evidence that for years defendant has suffered from schizophrenic disorders, death sentence is vacated, and case remanded for imposition of sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole -- Absent unusual circumstances, death is not indicated in a single-aggravator case where there is substantial mitigation -- Moreover, death sentence would be disproportionate even if avoid arrest aggravator were validReported at 33 Fla...continue to full post

Full post as published by JAABlog on January 31, 2008 (boomark / email).