• Jurors are deciding whether to recommend the death penalty for Markeith Loyd, who was found guilty of the murder of Orlando police lieutenant Debra Clayton. The sentencing phase of the trial began today.
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• Orlando Police Lt. Debra Clayton was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and Award of Valor. It’s the department’s highest honor given for courage and bravery.
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• Two major roadways in Orange County will be renamed to honor the police lieutenant and deputy killed earlier this year in the line of duty.
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• Aside from debating life and death, the conversation around Florida’s death penalty has some racist undertones, as evidenced this week after Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala said a noose was mailed to her office. Ayala made the remarks during a radio interview on WHPB 98.5 The Wire, a station based in the Pine Hills area. Host Paul Porter had asked Ayala about the threats she received after announcing in March that she wouldn’t seek the death penalty for capital cases, including the case of murder suspect Markeith Loyd. Since Ayala announced her decision, she was removed from the Loyd case and 22 more first-degree murder cases by Gov. Rick Scott, who said she “won’t fight for justice.” Ayala has filed …
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• Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala has filed a federal lawsuit against the governor. The lawsuit comes after Gov. Rick Scott reassigned 23 death penalty cases to a different state attorney.
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• Herman Lindsey can tell you what it’s like to wait for a turn with death. He was put on Florida’s death row in 2007, after being convicted of the murder of a store clerk who was fatally shot during a Fort Lauderdale robbery in 1994. As he fought to prove his innocence, other men were taken into the white execution room and injected with a fatal cocktail of drugs. And then one day, Lindsey was free. After fighting his case all the way to the Florida Supreme Court, all seven justices agreed the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction, much less a death sentence. Lindsey says he felt ignored by lawmakers in his fight to abolish the death penalty …
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• State Attorney Brad King says he will seek the death penalty for Markeith Loyd. King was assigned to the case by Governor Rick Scott after Orange and Osceola County prosecutor Aramis Ayala refused to seek the death penalty for Loyd or other cases in her jurisdiction.
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