Convicted killer Joseph Smith returning to Sarasota for death penalty hearing
Arguments over whether the death sentence should be reinstated for Joseph Smith, convicted of murdering 11-year-old Carlie Brucia in 2004, will play out in a Sarasota courtroom on Feb. 18.
Carlie was walking home from a friend’s house on Feb. 1, 2004, when she was abducted by Smith. He raped and murdered her. Her body was found four days later behind the Central Church of Christ, 6221 Proctor Road, after Smith confessed to the crime.
A jury convicted Smith, 53, in November 2005 of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual battery of a child under the age of 12. Following a 10-2 recommendation from that jury, Smith was sentenced to death in March 2006.
In the wake of U.S. Supreme Court decision and subsequent Florida Supreme Court rulings that found how a person was sentenced to death in Florida unconstitutional, Smith had his death sentence vacated in April 2018 by the Florida Supreme Court. A date for the new penalty phase of Smith’s case had not yet been set.
But last month, the Florida Supreme Court partially reversed itself in its decision in State vs. Poole, ruling that a unanimous jury was not necessary in a jury’s final decision on whether to impose the death penalty.
Within days, the state attorney’s office filed a motion asking a judge to reinstate Smith’s death sentence.
On Feb. 18, the motion will be argued before Circuit Judge Charles Roberts in a Sarasota courtroom. Smith will be brought from the Union Correctional Institutional in Raiford for the hearing.
In the state’s motion, Chief Assistant State Attorney Craig Schaeffer argued that the requirements for the death penalty as set forth in the Poole ruling had already been met. The jury had been unanimous in finding Smith guilty of the kidnapping and the sexual battery, which constituted the necessary aggravating factors needed to impose the death penalty. Those aggravating factors have already been upheld at appeal.
In federal court and every other state except Alabama, a unanimous jury is necessary in order to impose the death penalty.
