After court ruling, prosecutors want Carlie Brucia’s killer’s death sentence reinstated
Prosecutors are seeking to have 11-year-old Carlie Brucia’s killer’s death sentenced reinstated less than a week after the Florida Supreme Court reversed its own position requiring that juries must vote unanimously to sentence someone to death.
On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court issued a majority ruling in State v. Poole, finding that it in 2016 it had incorrectly interpreted the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hurst vs. Florida that found Florida’s death penalty unconstitutional.
Later that year, the Florida Supreme Court issued rulings based on their interpretation, finding that a jury needed to find at least one aggravating factor proven beyond a reasonable doubt, that the aggravating factor was sufficient, that it outweighed the mitigating circumstances and that they vote unanimously in order to impose a death sentence.
But last week, the Florida Supreme Court reversed part of its decision, saying that a jury only needed to be unanimous in determining the death penalty was appropriate by finding there were aggravating factors. A jury did not need to be unanimous in its final decision on whether or not to sentence someone to death.
Carlie’s killer, Joseph Smith, had been among those who had been eligible for and granted a re-sentencing hearing as a result of the rulings in the Hurst case.
On Monday, the state attorney’s office filed a motion asking that Smith’s original death sentence be reinstated.
According to the four-page motion filed by Chief Assistant State Attorney Craig Schaeffer, the circumstances in Smith’s case are similar to the Poole case. Smith was found guilty of other crimes in the case, raping and kidnapping Carlie, which served as the necessary aggravating factors to impose the death penalty.
Since the jury unanimously found Smith guilty of capital sexual battery and kidnapping and those aggravating factors had already been upheld by the Florida Supreme Court at appeal, the requirements to impose death set forth in the Poole have already been satisfied, the state is arguing.
A date had not yet been set for Smith’s new penalty phase trial.
Every other state, except for Alabama, and federal courts require a unanimous jury in order to impose the death penalty.
On Feb. 1, 2004, Carlie was walking home from a friend’s house on when Smith abducted her as she passed the back of Evie’s Car Wash, 4715 Bee Ridge Road, Sarasota. The car wash’s video surveillance system captured the abduction and was later used as key evidence at trial.
Carlie’s body was found at Central Church of Christ, 6221 Proctor Road. Smith was ultimately arrested and he confessed. He was tried and convicted in November 2005. He was sentenced to death in March 2006.
None of three death row inmates from Manatee County have been granted a re-sentencing as a result of Hurst.
Delmer Smith, 48, was sentenced to death for beating Kathleen Briles to death on Aug. 3, 2009, with her 23-pound cast iron antique sewing machine inside her Terra Ceia home.
Smith had been granted an hearing on a possible new trial or re-sentencing based on claims of ineffective counsel, issues surrounding evidence in the case and because of the Hurst ruling.
Smith claimed that although the jury voted unanimously to recommend he be put to death, they did not vote or make any determinations on the other requirements set out in Hurst, including that there was at least one aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt, if that aggravating factor was sufficient to justify death and whether the aggravating factor outweighed the totality of mitigating circumstances.
The Hurst error was ruled to be harmless because it did not a create a reasonable possibility that the error affected the sentence. Jurors in the case had in fact been instructed on the need to find aggravating factors and that the factors needed to outweigh mitigating circumstances.
His other claims in the motion for post-conviction relief were also later denied.
Daniel Burns, who turns 70 on Wednesday, was sentenced to death for shooting FHP trooper Jeffrey D. Young dead during a traffic stop on Aug. 18, 1987. He was denied a re-sentencing following Hurst because the jury in his case had made a unanimous recommendation that he be sentenced to death and because his case was resolved prior to the cutoff set forth in the Florida Supreme Court’s ruling in Hitchcock.
Melvin Trotter, 59, was sentenced to death on May 18, 1987, for killing for the June 16, 1986, fatal stabbing of Palmetto grocery store owner Virgie Langford. He was also denied any relief by the Florida Supreme Court. In his case, although the jury verdict was not unanimous, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that Hurst could not be applied retroactively to his case based on their ruling in Hitchcock
This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
