USA - Florida. Judge Mallory Cooper sentenced Randall Deviney to death.

Circuit Judge Mallory Cooper sentenced Randall Deviney, 25, White, to death. He was 18 when, on August 5, 2008, he killed Dolores Futrell, 65, black, during a burglary. This is the 2nd time Cooper has sentenced Deviney to death. Deviney was previously sentenced to death on June 11, 2010 (see), but on February 22, 2013 (see) the Florida Supreme Court threw out that conviction because Jacksonville police continued to interrogate him after he invoked his right to remain silent. In the 2nd trial prosecutors got another conviction, and the jury recommended Deviney be executed by an 8-4 vote (see July 23, 2015). During the trial Deviney admitted to killing Futrell in 2008, saying he snapped after she urged him to tell authorities he suffered childhood sexual abuse by his mother and his mother's drug dealer. He told jurors he felt awful about killing Futrell, his neighbor who suffered from multiple sclerosis. Deviney will get an automatic appeal with the Florida Supreme Court. But his best chance of getting off death row may rest with another Florida death-penalty case that is now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Under Florida law, jurors recommend life or death, but the judges make the final decision. U.S. Supreme Court justices are reviewing whether Florida's death-penalty sentencing procedures are unconstitutional because judges are allowed to impose death without a jury unanimously calling for it. Florida is one of only a few states that does not require a jury recommend death unanimously before a judge can impose the sentence. If the Supreme Court finds that Florida's sentencing procedures violate the U.S. Constitution, Deviney is likely to get off death row since his jury was not unanimous.