USA - Florida. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals restores Thomas Knight's death sentence

Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals restores Thomas Knight's death sentence. The court reversed (by a vote of 2-1) the Nov. 2012 decision of U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan, who tossed the death sentence for the October 21, 1974 murders of Sydney and Lillian Gans. Knight, 62, is also facing execution for a 3rd murder: the fatal October 12, 1980 stabbing of corrections officer Richard Burke. In 1987, a federal appeals court threw out the Gans death sentence, ruling that Knight should have been allowed to present character and background witnesses during a penalty hearing. Knight's 1996 resentencing was held under heavy security. By then, he had grown a beard and changed his named to Askari Abdullah Muhammad. He proved too disruptive to keep in the courtroom, cursing daily at the judge and lawyers and yelling "Allahu Akbar!" - "God is great" in Arabic. Jurors, in a 9-3 vote, recommended the death penalty, once again, for the Gans murders. Circuit Judge Rodolfo Sorondo Jr. sentenced him to death. But then late last year, U.S. District Judge Jordan ruled Knight's constitutional right to confront and cross-examine witnesses had been violated at the sentencing. The reason: Miami-Dade Detective Greg Smith recounted the words of a police helicopter pilot who never testified in previous court hearings. The issue was key for defense lawyers, who claimed that Knight never planned to kill the husband and wife. Knight only shot the couple after he heard a police helicopter and suffered a schizophrenic "break," defense attorneys insisted.