[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

April 23



FLORIDA:

Supreme Court vacates death sentence for killer of Tampa police corporal



The Florida Supreme Court has vacated the death sentence of Humberto Delgado, 
who was convicted in the 2009 killing of Tampa police Corporal Mike Roberts.

In an opinion issued Thursday, the court ruled that Delgado's extreme mental 
illness at the time of the crime made a death sentence disproportionate to the 
severity of the crime. The court ordered the case back to the circuit court for 
Delgado to be resentenced to life in prison.

Delgado, 40, was convicted of 1st-degree murder in 2012 in Roberts' death.

The Tampa police corporal encountered Delgado on Aug. 19, 2009, as Delgado 
pushed a shopping cart full of guns down Nebraska Avenue. He fought the 
officer, shooting him once before running away.

At his trial, doctors testified about Delgado's history of delusions and 
psychotic behavior. All diagnosed him with bipolar disorder. Their examinations 
revealed that in his early adulthood, Delgado was plagued by the beliefs that 
police were out to kill him and that people were following him and sitting in 
trees outside his home. He was known to wander the streets at night, saying 
that demons, the Masons, and the rapper 50 Cent were trying to kill him.

On the day he shot Roberts, Delgado had walked nearly 15 miles from his uncle's 
home in Oldsmar, en route to a veterans hospital in Tampa. Roberts saw him with 
the cart in an area that had seen a rash of shopping cart thefts by homeless 
people.

Delgado gave Roberts his identification card. When Roberts started to search 
Delgado's belongings, he tried to run. Roberts shocked Delgado with a Taser. 
Delgado then hit Roberts several times before drawing a gun and shooting him.

He ran to a local park, where officers soon found him hiding behind a wood pile 
and arrested him.

In its opinion, the supreme court noted that the death penalty is meant for 
cases in which the aggravating factors greatly outweigh any mitigating factors 
presented by the defense. In Delgado's case, substantial weight was given to 
his impaired mental state at the time of the crime.

"We do not downplay the fact that Corporal Roberts lost his life as a result of 
Delgado's actions," the justices wrote. "However ... we are compelled to reduce 
Delgado's sentence to life imprisonment because death is not a proportionate 
penalty when compared to other cases."

(source: Tampa Bay Times)