Loading ...Sarasota Death Penalty Defendant To Get Additional Hearing Prior to Sentencing
A Sarasota jury voted 12-0 earlier this month to recommend giving Michael King the death penalty for killing Denise Lee in January 2008. Before the judge sentences King, though, he will have the opportunity to present more evidence in support of his plea to avoid execution. This next hearing, set for October 28, is referred to in Florida as a “Spencer hearing.”
Sarasota Circuit Judge Deno Economou will ultimately decide if King is sentenced to death or life in prison. He is not bound by the jury’s recommendation but must give “great weight” to the jury’s advisory sentence.
King’s Spencer hearing is scheduled to last two days. Attorneys and even King himself will have the opportunity to present evidence to Economou. The defendant will reargue his mitigating evidence. The prosecutor can have additional victim impact statements read into the record.
The purpose of the Spencer hearing is to ensure the reliability of the penalty and sentencing process in Florida. The hearing is named for Leonard Spencer, who was sentenced in 1989 to death after a jury found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and multiple counts of armed robbery.
In Spencer’s case, the defense attorney went looking for the judge and prosecutor and found them in the judge’s chambers,proofreading an order sentencing Spencer to death. Spencer’s attorney, “voiced his concern that the judge had drafted an order expressing his reasons and conclusions for imposing the death penalty prior to Spencer’s counsel having an opportunity to be heard,” according to the appeals court.
The Florida Supreme Court ultimately determined that a trial judge should not formulate his sentencing decision prior to giving the defendant an opportunity to be heard. They then then established a procedure to be used in the sentencing phase, which included the trial judge holding a hearing to give the defendant and his or her counsel the opportunity to be heard and an opportunity to present additional evidence – now called a “Spencer hearing”.
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