[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLORIDA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov., 8



FLORIDA----execution

Florida executes killer Patrick Hannon after Supreme Court rejects last-ditch 
appeal


lorida has executed an inmate who was convicted of slashing one man’s throat 
and fatally shooting another in 1991.

The office of Gov. Rick Scott said inmate Patrick Hannon, 53, was pronounced 
dead at 8:50 p.m. Wednesday following an injection at Florida State Prison in 
Starke.

Hannon had been scheduled to die at 6 p.m., but the execution was delayed 
pending a last-ditch appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. That was rejected.

Hannon was the third Florida inmate executed since August. The state resumed 
executions that month following changes it made to its death penalty sentencing 
law, which now requires a unanimous jury vote for a death sentence.

The U.S. Supreme Court had recently found Florida’s old sentencing law, which 
did not require unanimity, to be unconstitutional. However, the new sentencing 
law did not affect Hannon’s case because the state’s high court ruled that 
those decided before 2002 were not eligible for relief.

Hannon was convicted in 1991 of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder for the slayings 
of Brandon Snider and Robert Carter.

It was January 1991 when he and two other men went to Snider’s apartment in 
Tampa.

Hannon’s friend Jim Acker initially attacked Snider with a knife. Prosecutors 
said the attacks were motivated by Snider’s vandalizing of Acker’s sister’s 
apartment.

Snider was “eviscerated” by the initial stabbing, according to court documents, 
and Hannon sliced his throat, nearly severing the victim’s head.

Snider’s roommate, Robert Carter, was also home and fled to an upstairs 
bedroom, where Hannon dragged him from under a bed and shot him 6 times, the 
jury found.

Hannon’s jury recommended death unanimously after finding him guilty of both 
murders.

His requests for a halt to his execution to the Florida Supreme Court have been 
denied. Hannon had asked for a new sentencing phase in light of the recent 
changes to Florida’s death sentencing system.

Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Pariente, who dissented from the rest of 
the court, wrote that the jury was not given enough information to make an 
informed decision in Hannon’s sentencing phase.

Hannon becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Florida 
and the 95th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979.  Only 
Texas (544), Virginia (113) and Oklahoma (112) have carried out more executions 
than Florida since the USA re-legalized the death penalty on July 2, 1976.

Hannon becomes the 22nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the 
USA and the 1,464th overall since the nation resumed executions on
January 17, 1977.

(sources: Orlando Sentinel & Rick Halperin)