Bevel v. State
The Florida Supreme Court affirmed Thomas Bevel's two death sentences imposed on resentencing, rejecting his claims that the trial court erred in declining to find the extreme mental or emotional disturbance statutory mitigator despite expert testimony, in refusing a special 'mercy' jury instruction, in precluding proportionality argument to the jury, and in rejecting various constitutional challenges to Florida's capital sentencing scheme. The Court held the trial court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting the mitigator because the expert's opinion—based solely on longstanding PTSD/depression diagnoses without any assessment of Bevel's mental state at the time of the murders—was reconcilable with, and undermined by, evidence of Bevel's purposeful and deliberate conduct during the crimes.
Key facts
- Thomas Bevel was convicted of two murders and sentenced to death at trial; the case returned to the trial court for resentencing.
- At resentencing, Bevel presented expert testimony regarding longstanding PTSD and depression diagnoses to support an extreme mental or emotional disturbance statutory mitigator, and sought a special jury instruction on mercy and permission to argue comparative proportionality to the jury.
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Why it matters
This opinion is useful to capital defense and prosecution practitioners because it reaffirms and applies the Foster/Nelson line of cases allowing trial courts to reject statutory mental-health mitigators even in the… — full analysis with a trial
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