Life Sentence in Plant City Murder

A Hillsborough County circuit judge sentenced Leonel Marquetti to life in prison without parole for killing his ex-girlfriend’s handyman this week. Prosecutors alleged that Marquetti shot and killed Michael Hurlbutt on March 25, 2010 in Plant City because he wrongly assumed that Hurlbutt was involved with Marquetti’s ex-girlfriend.

Marquetti was convicted last month of first-degree murder. The only possible sentence available to the court was a life term. He was also sentenced to maximum five-year terms on convictions of aggravated battery with a firearm and false imprisonment.

Hurlbutt was Siglinde Sperber’s handyman. Prosecutors argued that Marquetti was jealous of Sperber’s relationship with Hurlbutt, who had done some work at the Plant City home previously shared by Sperber and Marquetti.

Sperber testified that Marquetti walked toward Hurlbutt as he was coming out of the kitchen onto a screened patio and shot him in the chest. She said that Marquetti shot Hurlbutt twice more while standing over him. He then fired a fourth time.

Marquetti admitted shooting when he sensed someone approaching him but denied any animosity toward Hurlbutt.

Under Florida law, murder in the first degree is the unlawful killing of a human being “when perpetrated from a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed or any human being.” Murder in the second degree is “the unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual.”

Premeditation seems to the main point of contention in this case. Prosecutors convinced the jury that Marquetti consciously decided to kill Hurlbutt before doing so. The decision must be present in the mind at the time of the killing. The law does not fix the exact period of time that must pass between the formation of the premeditated intent to kill and the killing. The period of time must be long enough to allow reflection by the defendant.