USA - Florida. The Florida Supreme Court overturned a death sentence for Ralston "Jay" Davis

The Florida Supreme Court overturned a death penalty sentence for Ralston "Jay" Davis, a man convicted in a Dec. 2, 2005 crack cocaine-fueled triple murder spree. Davis was found guilty in 2009 of the killing of Myosha Proby, 28. He later fatally shot two strangers at a nearby Exxon station. He received life sentences for the second and third killings, but the jury opted to give him the death penalty for Proby's death. He was sentenced to death on January 7, 2010 (see). Davis' attorneys used an insanity plea and Davis took the witness stand during his trial to say he had been driven by the Holy Spirit, a sixth sense and voices. He said when Proby, who he had known for less than a month, called him on his cellphone, he believed she needed to be eliminated. "I believed that was God talking to me," Davis said. The court agreed 8-0 to uphold Davis' murder conviction, but split 6-2 on vacating the death penalty. In the majority opinion, the court wrote that experts had testified at length about Davis' mental deterioration. When a convicted murderer has a significant mental history, the death penalty is appropriate only if he or she commits "the most aggravated" of murders. That was not the case with Davis, the justices wrote. "We have previously vacated sentences of death in cases where the capital crime was committed spontaneously and as a result of mental illness," the court concluded. The case will now return to the trial court for re-sentencing.