the Florida Supreme Court reversed the death sentence of Andrew Busby

the Florida Supreme Court reversed the death sentence of Andrew Busby in the slaying of his cellmate because the trial judge refused to excuse a former death row guard from the jury.
Elton Ard was strangled in his cell at Columbia Correctional Institution in Lake City in July 2000.
Busby, 26, was serving a life sentence for attempted murder. He and the other inmate confessed to killing Ard.
In Thursday's 4-3 ruling, Florida's high court said Busby's murder conviction and death sentence had to be vacated because the judge refused to dismiss a potential juror who had worked as a death row guard.
That someone works as a prison guard is not reason by itself to dismiss the person from a jury, but the answers given by the former guard to questions from Busby's attorney raised red flags about his ability to be impartial, the decision said.
When a defense attorney's request to have the guard rejected ''for cause'' was denied, the lawyer was forced to use a ''peremptory challenge'' to reject the juror.
"Peremptory challenges," let attorneys excuse potential jurors without citing a reason, but they are limited in the number of such challenges. Busby's defense team ran out of peremptory challenges and had to accept another jury that it would have rejected had it not been forced to use a challenge on the former guard.