News Service of Florida
The Florida Supreme Court on Friday ordered a new sentencing hearing for a man who killed 11-year-old Carlie Brucia in Sarasota County in a case that drew national attention.
Justices issued a unanimous, one-paragraph order directing a new hearing for Joseph Smith, now 55, who was convicted in the 2004 murder. The order came more than two months after Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office acknowledged in a court filing that Smith should be resentenced because of rulings last year by the Supreme Court in other cases.
Those rulings came after a series of complicated death penalty developments that began in early 2016 when the U.S. Supreme Court found Florida’s death penalty system unconstitutional because it gave too much authority to judges, instead of juries, in imposing death sentences.
The ruling comes after the U.S. Supreme Court found Florida’s death-penalty system unconstitutional.
The Florida Supreme Court on Friday ordered a new sentencing hearing for a man who killed 11-year-old Carlie Brucia in Sarasota County in a case that drew national attention.
Justices issued a unanimous, one-paragraph order directing a new hearing for Joseph Smith, now 55, who was convicted in the 2004 murder.
The order came more than two months after Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office acknowledged in a court filing that Smith should be resentenced because of rulings last year by the Supreme Court in other cases.
TALLAHASSEE – More than 17 years after 11-year-old Carlie Brucia was abducted and murdered in Sarasota County, the attorney general’s office acknowledged this week that convicted killer Joseph Smith should receive a new sentencing hearing.
In filings Monday at the Florida Supreme Court, the attorney general’s office said rulings last year by justices in other cases require that Smith and four other convicted murderers be resentenced.
The filing in the Smith case was the latest in a series of legal twists in a 2004 murder that drew national attention. A circuit judge in April 2020 resentenced Smith to death, but the Supreme Court subsequently issued rulings in two other cases that called that sentence into question.
Brucia killer headed toward new sentencing By Jim Saunders | March 2, 2021 at 5:33 PM EST - Updated March 2 at 5:33 PM
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (News Service of Florida) - More than 17 years after 11-year-old Carlie Brucia was abducted and murdered in Sarasota County, the attorney generalâs office acknowledged this week that convicted killer Joseph Smith should receive a new sentencing hearing.
In filings Monday at the Florida Supreme Court, the attorney generalâs office said rulings last year by justices in other cases require that Smith and four other convicted murderers be resentenced.
The filing in the Smith case was the latest in a series of legal twists in a 2004 murder that drew national attention. A circuit judge in April 2020 resentenced Smith to death, but the Supreme Court subsequently issued rulings in two other cases that called that sentence into question.