News Brief — Florida Supreme Court Upholds Death Sentence for Man Who Pled Guilty and Waived Jury

NEWS (3/12/20): The Florida Supreme Court on March 12, 2020 denied death-row prisoner Hector Sanchez-Torres’s post-conviction challenge to his conviction and death sentence for a 2008 armed robbery and murder. In an unsigned opinion, the court ruled that Sanchez-Torres’s counsel had not been ineffective in advising him to plead guilty to the charges and to waive a sentencing jury based on counsel’s belief that “a Clay County jury would absolutely convict [him] of first-degree murder and give him death based on the facts of the case.”