Adam Matos gets 4 life prison terms for 2014 murders

Adam Matos received four life sentences for the August 2014 murders his ex-girlfriend, her boyfriend and her parents after a Pasco County jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on the death penalty.

On Thursday, Matos was found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his former girlfriend Megan Brown, her new boyfriend Nicholas Leonard and Brown’s parents, Greg and Margaret, in late August 2014 in Hudson. During his trial, Matos testified on his own behalf admitting to the murders but claiming self-defense.

The State Attorney’s Office had sought the death penalty for Matos. The penalty phase of the trial got underway on Monday.

On Tuesday, the same jurors who found him guilty of all four deaths could not agree on the death penalty.

In all four counts, the jurors found all the necessary requirements to impose a possible death sentence. However, they were not unanimous in their decision to actually sentence Matos to death. For three of the murders, the jury voted 2 to 11 to sentence him to life instead. For the fourth murder, the jurors voted 1 to 11 to sentence Matos to life instead.

Under Florida’s new law regarding capital punishment, a jury must vote unanimously to sentence someone convicted of first-degree murder to death. Judges cannot overrule the jury’s decision on sentencing in capital cases.

But in order to sentence a murderer to death, jurors have to agree on several criteria before making a final decision.

First, a jury must vote unanimously and find that there was at least one aggravating factor presented by the state beyond a reasonable doubt. Next, the jurors must unanimously decide that the aggravating factor warrants the death penalty.

The jury must decide then if the defense proved any mitigating circumstances for a murder by the greater weight of the evidence. In order to proceed with a possible death sentence, a jury must then decide unanimously that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating circumstances.

Ultimately, however, the jury must vote one more time whether or not to impose death. The decision must be unanimous for the death penalty to imposed, but it is a decision with no legal basis other than each juror’s personal decision.

This story was originally published November 21, 2017 at 10:03 PM with the headline "Adam Matos gets 4 life prison terms for 2014 murders."