The jury in the retrial of Peter Avsenew will not hear about the racist and homophobic views he expressed in a letter to a Broward Circuit Judge before he was sentenced for murder, a different judge ruled Thursday. At least, not yet.
Defense lawyers for former death row inmate Peter Avsenew don’t want the jury at his retrial to know what he said about gay people. Or white supremacy. Or himself. “It is my duty as a white man to cull the weak and timid from existence,” he wrote. “Homosexuals are a disease to mankind and must be put down."
The penalty trial of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter is expected to last months, starting on Monday with the first phase of jury selection and continuing at least into the summer. Throughout the process, readers and television viewers will be introduced to a host of faces.
The people of Broward County will foot the bill, again, for Peter Avsenew, the former death row inmate who was granted a retrial in January based on a decision to allow his mother to testify against him without being able to look him in the eye.