ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 4, 1996 TAG: 9611040066
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether a Florida death row inmate is entitled to a new sentencing because an instruction given to the jury was later ruled unlawful in another case.
The court said it will hear Cary Michael Lambrix's argument that he should be granted a new sentencing because of a 1992 ruling in an unrelated Florida case.
Lambrix was convicted of the February 1983 killings of Clarence Moore and Aleisha Bryant after an evening of drinking at Lambrix's trailer in Glades County.
The sentencing jury was told it could find, as a factor weighing in favor of the death penalty, that the killings were ``especially wicked, evil, atrocious or cruel.'' The jury recommended a death sentence, and the judge sentenced him to death in each of the killings.
In 1992, while Lambrix's case was on appeal in federal court, the Supreme Court ruled in another Florida case that the jury instruction was unconstitutionally vague. The court said the sentencing in that case violated the defendant's constitutional rights because the judge was required to give ``great weight'' to the jury's recommendation.
Lambrix sought a new sentencing under the 1992 ruling. The Florida Supreme Court refused to apply the decision to Lambrix's case, as did the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the appeal granted Supreme Court review, Lambrix's lawyer said the jury instruction ``tipped the scales at the sentencing hearing'' and the 1992 ruling should be applied to his case.
Lawyers for the state said any error should be considered harmless because the brutality of the killings would have justified a similar jury recommendation if a lawful jury instruction had been used.
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