A rare federal death penalty case was tried in Tampa this month. The case involved an execution-style murder in a Bartow drug house. Bartow is the county seat of Polk County, just east of Tampa and Hillsborough County.

The U.S. government passed the federal death penalty statute 20 years ago. Only three people have been executed as a result of a federal death sentence since then, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. The State of Florida executed three people in the last eight months. Fifty-five people are on federal death row. There are 394 inmates on Florida’s death row.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the last federal death penalty case in the Middle District of Florida was tried nine years ago and involved civil rights charges. There were no civil rights charges in the Bartow case.

Death penalty cases – and even non-capital murder trials – are generally tried in state courts. It is not clear why the Polk County murder case is in federal court.

In this Bartow case, three young men invaded a drug house, stole cocaine, marijuana, guns and cash – and one of the intruders shot and killed the owner of the home.

It is really difficult to understand why this case was filed as a death penalty case in federal court – or as a capital murder case at all. The U.S. Attorney’s Office commented that the the case fell under federal jurisdiction because armed robbery and using a firearm in the course of a murder are federal crimes. The facts though are much like any drug-related murder prosecuted in state court every day.

There has been some speculation that defendants were part of a broader federal investigation. Attorney statements during the trial suggested that the FBI may have taken over investigation of the case because the Bartow police department was too small and inexperienced to handle it.

The defendant was ultimately convicted of the federal murder charge but the jury could not reach a unanimous decision to impose the death penalty. The judge must now follow the jury’s recommendation and impose a life sentence on the defendant.

We’d be surprised to see the regular filing of death penalty cases in Tampa’s federal court – but we’ll definitely be watching to see if (and why) charges like these occur again.

Felonies, Violent Crimes

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 7:55 am and is filed under Florida Criminal Law News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.