Ritchie v. State of Florida
Annotate this CaseRitchie sexually battered and strangled to death nine-year-old F.W., who had been left in Ritchie’s care by a friend, then dumped the child’s body in the water off of the Courtney Campbell Causeway and fabricated a story about her disappearance. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed his conviction for first-degree murder and his sentence of death. The court rejected claims that the cumulative impact of improper comments by the prosecutor during the penalty phase closing argument deprived Ritchie of a fair penalty phase; Florida law regarding the presentation of victim impact evidence is unconstitutional on its face and as applied in his case; the trial court erred in ordering audio redactions to a mitigation video submitted by Ritchie and by allowing the state to present improper rebuttal evidence to the video; and the cumulative prejudicial effect of the trial errors alleged in issues one through three deprived him of a fair penalty phase. Ritchie’s case is not one where the “jury recommendation of death could not have been obtained without the assistance of” the errors. The aggravators “greatly outweighed” the scant mitigation. The court acknowledged that the state easily could have avoided the errors that occurred and that similar errors, particularly if preserved, might be outcome-determinative in a closer case.
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