Killer to Get New Sentence
Dublin Core
Title
Killer to Get New Sentence
Subject
Mello, Michael
Booker, Steven
Description
Steven Booker, a man sentenced to Death Row for the rape and murder of a 94-year-old woman nearly 20 years ago is being resentenced due to a decision made by Florida's 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Creator
Hoover, Aaron
Source
Hoover, Aaron. “Killer to Get New Sentence.” The Gainesville Sun, July 31, 1996.
Publisher
HIST 298, University of Mary Washington
Date
1996-07-31
Rights
The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source.
Format
1 JPG
300 DPI
Language
English
Coverage
Gainesville, FL
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
[Publisher] The Gainesville Sun
[Date] Wednesday, July 31, 1996
[Title] 'Killer to get new sentence'
[Subtitle] 'An appeals court orders resentencing for the Death Row inmate who raped and killed a 94-year-old woman.'
[Author] Aaron Hoover
A man sent to Florida's Death Row nearly 20 years ago for the rape and murder of a 94-year-old Gainesville woman must be sentenced all over again, an appeals court has ruled. Steven Todd Booker, convicted of first-degree murder and a survivor of at least three death warrants for the 1977 rape and murder of Duck Pond resident Lorine Harmon will appear before a jury in a Alachua County and be resentenced in the case as a result of the decision this month by the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeal. Prosecutors decried the development as an example of a flawed system that allows death penalty appeals to drag on for decades quote this is an example of why the appeal IT system is entirely broken," said state attorney rod Smith. "No one is saying he didn't do it. . . but 20 years after the fact we're deciding to reconstruct a penalty phase on a brutal murder." But a lawyer who has represented Booker had a decidedly different view. Michael Mello a Vermont law professor who has worked extensively on Booker's case, said the state is to blame for much of the delay. U.S. Judge Maurice Paul first ruled Booker should be resentenced in 1988, but appeals by the Attorney General's Office delayed a final decision until this month, said Mello, a law professor at Vermont Law School. "Steve Booker's case is the case I always use in our capital punishment seminar to illustrate these delays in death penalties that prosecutors and politicians are always talking about - they're as often or not caused by prosecutors," Mello said. A jury in Alachua county convicted Booker, now 42, of first degree murder, rape by force, and burglary for breaking into Harman's apartment, raping and killing her on Nov. 9, 1977. After his conviction, Booker wrote to Circuit Judge John Crews, now deceased, asking to be put to death. Harman, an assistant post master in her native Maryland, had moved to Gainesville in 1956 when her husband retired. She went back to Maryland briefly after Frank Harman died, but later settled permanently in Gainesville, where she was known for her independence - frequently walking into the now defunct Primrose Inn restaurant downtown for lunch, for example. according to Mello, jury instructions at the time of Booker's sentencing directed juries to consider only certain narrowly defined reasons why he might be spared. Those instructions prevented the jury form considering crucial evidence about Booker's mental health, he said. "The list of mitigating circumstances said the jury should consider some kinds of craziness, and Booker didn't have those kinds of craziness, he had other kinds of craziness," Mello said. Those included alcohol abuse and "a hideous family background," he said. A 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Florida Death Row inmate James Hitchcock's case found identical jury instructions unconstitutional, meaning that all relevant evidence could be introduced in death penalty defenses, Mello said. The decision affected "two or three dozen cases" including Booker's cases, he said. The date for the new sentencing hearing has not been set, but Smith indicated he was not pleased to face the challenge. "you have to reconstruct somewhat what's already occurred and represent what occurred at the trial phase so the jury will understand at the penalty phase what you're talking about," he said. "It's an outrageous assignment to any office to go back and try any portion of a case under those circumstances."
[Date] Wednesday, July 31, 1996
[Title] 'Killer to get new sentence'
[Subtitle] 'An appeals court orders resentencing for the Death Row inmate who raped and killed a 94-year-old woman.'
[Author] Aaron Hoover
A man sent to Florida's Death Row nearly 20 years ago for the rape and murder of a 94-year-old Gainesville woman must be sentenced all over again, an appeals court has ruled. Steven Todd Booker, convicted of first-degree murder and a survivor of at least three death warrants for the 1977 rape and murder of Duck Pond resident Lorine Harmon will appear before a jury in a Alachua County and be resentenced in the case as a result of the decision this month by the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeal. Prosecutors decried the development as an example of a flawed system that allows death penalty appeals to drag on for decades quote this is an example of why the appeal IT system is entirely broken," said state attorney rod Smith. "No one is saying he didn't do it. . . but 20 years after the fact we're deciding to reconstruct a penalty phase on a brutal murder." But a lawyer who has represented Booker had a decidedly different view. Michael Mello a Vermont law professor who has worked extensively on Booker's case, said the state is to blame for much of the delay. U.S. Judge Maurice Paul first ruled Booker should be resentenced in 1988, but appeals by the Attorney General's Office delayed a final decision until this month, said Mello, a law professor at Vermont Law School. "Steve Booker's case is the case I always use in our capital punishment seminar to illustrate these delays in death penalties that prosecutors and politicians are always talking about - they're as often or not caused by prosecutors," Mello said. A jury in Alachua county convicted Booker, now 42, of first degree murder, rape by force, and burglary for breaking into Harman's apartment, raping and killing her on Nov. 9, 1977. After his conviction, Booker wrote to Circuit Judge John Crews, now deceased, asking to be put to death. Harman, an assistant post master in her native Maryland, had moved to Gainesville in 1956 when her husband retired. She went back to Maryland briefly after Frank Harman died, but later settled permanently in Gainesville, where she was known for her independence - frequently walking into the now defunct Primrose Inn restaurant downtown for lunch, for example. according to Mello, jury instructions at the time of Booker's sentencing directed juries to consider only certain narrowly defined reasons why he might be spared. Those instructions prevented the jury form considering crucial evidence about Booker's mental health, he said. "The list of mitigating circumstances said the jury should consider some kinds of craziness, and Booker didn't have those kinds of craziness, he had other kinds of craziness," Mello said. Those included alcohol abuse and "a hideous family background," he said. A 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Florida Death Row inmate James Hitchcock's case found identical jury instructions unconstitutional, meaning that all relevant evidence could be introduced in death penalty defenses, Mello said. The decision affected "two or three dozen cases" including Booker's cases, he said. The date for the new sentencing hearing has not been set, but Smith indicated he was not pleased to face the challenge. "you have to reconstruct somewhat what's already occurred and represent what occurred at the trial phase so the jury will understand at the penalty phase what you're talking about," he said. "It's an outrageous assignment to any office to go back and try any portion of a case under those circumstances."
Original Format
Newspaper
Contributor of the Digital Item
Armel, Ryan
Student Editor of the Digital Item
Dickinson, Terra
Files
Citation
Hoover, Aaron, “Killer to Get New Sentence,” HIST299, accessed March 12, 2026, https://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/263.