Keys Death Row inmates: 1 to die, 1 to live?

The Florida Supreme Court cemented death sentences for nearly 200 prisoners Dec. 22, ruling they are not eligible for lower sentences or re-hearings under a revamped death penalty law.

That means one Death Row inmate from Monroe County still faces execution but the other Keys Death Row inmate might not.

In a 6-1 ruling, the justices said death sentences finalized before a June 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision would remain in effect, paving the way for executions to begin again in Florida. However, the ruling left open the possibility that more than half of Florida’s Death Row inmates could be re-sentenced based on rulings this year that threw out the state’s death penalty rules.

In statements, Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi said they were “reviewing the ruling.” The state has executed 23 people while Scott has been in office, more than any governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Under last weekend’s decision, Thomas Overton, 61, would still be executed.

He was sentenced to death on March 18, 1999, for the 1991 murders of Michael and Missy MacIvor of Tavernier and their unborn child. Overton, a service-station clerk who moonlighted as a burglar, was linked to the crimes after detectives obtained a DNA sample from his blood while he was in custody in November 1994 on a burglary count.

The ruling's impact on the 2003 death sentence imposed on Michael Tanzi seems cloudy.

Tanzi, 39, was sentenced to death on April 11, 2003, for the 2002 killing of Janet Acosta, a Miami Herald supervisor. In his confession, Tanzi said he forced Acosta into her van during her lunch break on Watson Island, drove her to the Keys and used her ATM card to withdraw money. He then strangled her and dumped her body on Blimp Road on Cudjoe Key.

After Tanzi pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, kidnapping and armed robbery, the jury in his 2003 sentencing hearing voted 12-0 for the death penalty.

“Since that was 12-0, it seems unlikely the Florida Supreme Court decision would have any effect on Tanzi,” Monroe County State Attorney Catherine Vogel said in October.Thursday’s ruling caps a tumultuous year for Florida’s death penalty. The only execution in 2016 was that of Oscar Ray Bolin Jr. on Jan. 7. Five days later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state’s death penalty unconstitutional in Hurst vs. Florida, prompting the Legislature to rewrite sentencing laws.

In October, the Florida Supreme Court decided that the Hurst ruling required unanimous votes by juries to make a death sentence. Current law requires a supermajority vote by 10 of the 12 members of a jury.

There are 384 prisoners on Florida’s Death Row.

Critics of the Dec. 22 ruling say drawing a line in the sand on the day the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 2002 decision in Ring vs. Arizona is arbitrary. That case required that juries find specific aggravating factors before sentencing someone to death and called Florida’s death penalty laws into question.

While several justices disagreed with parts of the case, just one justice, who retires Dec. 30, dissented entirely. Retiring Justice James Perry wrote that all Death Row inmates should have their sentences changed to life in prison.

The court’s decision could lead to more confusion about Florida’s death penalty in the future, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.

“That’s not a principled basis to decide whether someone should live or die,” he said. “And that only adds additional fuel to the cries of death penalty opponents that the United States is incapable of carrying out capital punishment in anything but an arbitrary manner.”

Keynoter Editor Larry Kahn contributed to this report.

This story was originally published December 30, 2016 at 4:15 PM with the headline "Keys Death Row inmates: 1 to die, 1 to live?."