Thursday, October 11, 2007

Supreme Court orders new sentencing in Brevard murder case


Supreme Court orders new sentencing in Brevard murder case

Florida Capital Bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Supreme Court Thursday granted a new penalty phase while upholding the first-degree murder conviction Crosley Green in a Brevard County murder.

Lawyers for Green and the state argued in June about a 2005 appellate ruling that upheld Green's guilty verdict but threw out his death sentence.

A Brevard County jury convicted Green, then 32, of first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery in the 1989 shooting death of 22-year-old Chip Flynn in a Central Florida orange grove.

Justices said his lawyer should have fully investigated a New York gas station robbery used as a factor when Green was sentenced to death. That case did not result in a conviction of Green under New York law, the Florida Supreme Court ruled, and Green's lawyer should have made that argument.

"We affirm the trial court's order upholding Green's first-degree murder conviction and granting a new penalty phase because counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate Green’s prior New York robbery case," the court concluded in its unanimous decision.

No comments: