The Florida Court of Appeals has confirmed the life sentence for Pablo Ibar and has refused to revoke the sentence as requested by the defense of this Hispanic-American citizen, who is serving a sentence in the United States for three murders.
The spokesman for the Pablo Ibar-Just Trial Association, Andrés Krakenberger, who this week visited the Basque Country together with the father and the defendant’s lawyer to continue gathering support, has reported this ruling, which he describes as a “destroying blow” and ” a big blow to the family.”
Pablo Ibar, 50 years old, married, father of two children and nephew of the Basque boxer José Manuel Ibar, Urtain, has been imprisoned in the United States since 1994 and has been tried four times for the deaths of Casimir Sucharski, owner of a nightclub, and of the models Marie Rogers and Sharon Anderson, three crimes that he assures that he did not commit.
Ibar spent 16 years on death row until a court overturned the sentence in 2016, considering the evidence “too flimsy”, and his death sentence was later replaced by life imprisonment.
On February 28, the hearing in which he requested the revocation of the life sentence and the holding of a new trial, which have now been rejected, was held at the Court of Appeals for the Fourth District of Florida.
In the appeal on February 28, Pablo Ibar’s defense attorney, Joe Nascimento, supported twelve legal reasons to demonstrate “the errors” that, according to the lawyer, occurred in the trial for which Ibar avoided the death penalty for exchange of spending life in prison.
The “insufficient” DNA evidence located on a T-shirt, the lack of connection with the murdered or the “inconsistency of the statement” of a key witness for the Prosecutor’s Office were some of the arguments put forward by Ibar’s defense.
But the Chamber has now dismissed all the arguments put forward by the lawyer Nascimento, and has only justified his refusal of one of the defense grounds – this court is not obliged to rule on each defense argument, it can simply say that it rejects them , as it has done with all the reasons except one-.
Specifically, it has analyzed one of the twelve reasons, in which Judge Dennis Bailey, the magistrate of the last trial, was accused of partiality in acting with a jury that denounced having suffered pressure from his peers to cast a vote favorable to the conviction and said on social networks that he regretted the sentence.
The Court of Appeals has dismissed this argument by Ibar’s lawyer: “The record in this case reveals that the juror simply regretted his verdict. The mere remorse of a juror is insufficient to justify an interference in the deliberations of the juror. jury”.
“There was simply no evidence to suggest that the juror was influenced by any external factor or that he had consented to an agreement between the jurors to disregard their oaths and instructions,” the ruling states.
The judges of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth District of Florida conclude that “there were no alleged manifest prejudicial acts or external influence.”
For the defense, by not explaining its decision on the other 11 issues with a written opinion, the Court of Appeals has substantially impaired Ibar’s ability to seek a review by the Florida Supreme Court.
Ibar’s attorney will now file a motion asking this Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision and prepare a written opinion addressing all issues, so that he can later appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.
Ibar’s defense has recalled that it was the Florida Supreme Court that annulled the conviction of the other defendant in this case, Seth Peñalver, in 2006, and also annulled Ibar’s previous conviction in 2016 and replaced it with life imprisonment.
