NEWS (9/11/20) — Florida: Nearly one year after a Hillsborough County jury recommended that Granville Ritchie be sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 9‑year-old girl, Judge Michelle Sisco formally imposed the death penalty in the case. The death sentence is the 14th DPIC’s tracking has verified so far in 2020, more than a third of which have been imposed in Florida. It is the third death sentence DPIC is aware of that has been imposed since the coronavirus pandemic shut down most court activities in mid-March.
On September 27, 2019, Ritchie’s jury unanimously recommended that the court sentence him to death. DPIC is not aware of any new death sentences imposed or recommended by a jury in the U.S. since March 16, 2020, when a Los Angeles jury recommended that Jade Harris be sentenced to death for a triple murder.
