Pasha Sentenced To Death In Fla.

From Staff Reports

TAMPA - A former Michigan City man, Khalid Ali Pasha, 64, was sentenced to die by lethal injection by a Tampa, Fla., jury Friday.

The jury voted 7-5 for the death penalty. In Florida, it takes seven of 12 jurors to make a recommendation for death. Anything less than that, and the sentence is life without parole.

It will be up to a judge to make the final recommendation. Hillsborough County Judge William Fuente will set a date for a final hearing before making a decision, although Florida law requires the judge to give "great weight" to the jury decision.

Pasha was convicted Wednesday of two counts of first-degree murder after a one-week trial before Fuente.

The jurors returned for the penalty phase of the trial Thursday to hear arguments and testimony, which concluded Friday when the jury retired to deliberate on whether to recommend death by lethal injection or life in prison without parole.

Pasha was convicted of fatally slashing the throats of his wife and her daughter, Robin Renee Canady, 43, and Renesha Singleton, 20, of Tampa, in 2002.

Pasha was convicted of robbery for a holdup at the Citizens Bank branch on East Michigan Boulevard in Trail Creek on March 27, 1984. He and an accomplice were captured 34 minutes later at U.S. 421 and Kieffer Road.

Before he was sentenced, Pasha and two other men escaped from the fifth floor of the La Porte County Jail in La Porte, but was captured the next day.