The state Supreme Court ordered the re-sentencing of...

The state Supreme Court ordered the re-sentencing of the oldest person on Florida's death row, saying his trial judge erroneously thought he didn't want any mitigating evidence presented.
At 75, Julio Mora is older than any of the other 372 people on death row. He was condemned in October 1998 for the murders of Clarence Rudolph and Karen Starr Marx, in 1994. Florida's high court upheld Mora's convictions but vacated the death sentences. The trial judge mishandled Mora's refusal to allow his trial lawyer to contact his elderly siblings in Spain to look for reasons to justify a life sentence, the Supreme Court ruled.
At the time, Mora said he didn't want his siblings contacted because he didn't think they could handle learning of his conviction. However, the judge interpreted that decision as a refusal to have any mitigating evidence presented.