May/12/08 08:05 AM Filed in:
Sean Taylor
Miami-Dade prosecutors have
waived the death penalty against the four suspects
accused of murdering former Washington Redskins
star Sean Taylor.
Eric Rivera, 18, Venjah Hunte, 20 and Charles Wardlow,
18, all of Fort Myers, and Jason Mitchell, 20, of
Lehigh Acres, face charges of first-degree murder and
armed burglary.
They will still face the possibility of life in prison,
but Assistant State Attorney Reid Rubin sent notice to
the defendants' attorneys late Friday he won't be
seeking to kill them for the alleged crimes, said
Hunte's attorney, Michael Hornung.
"They didn't leave Fort Myers with the intentions to
shoot anyone or kill anyone," Hornung said. "They were
going to make sure that person would lie down at
gunpoint."
On Nov. 26, Miami-Dade police said, the four drove to
Taylor's house. When they arrived, they broke into the
Washington Redskins safety's house intending to
burglarize it. But Taylor, 24, was at home with his
wife and child, recovering from a sprained right knee.
The former Pro Bowl safety was shot in the leg and died
of blood loss the next day.
According to Rivera's statement to investigators, five
people drove to the house that night in a rented SUV,
but only four arrests have been made.
Rivera, who was implicated as the shooter according to
a grand jury indictment, was 17 at the time of the
crime and wouldn't have been eligible for the death
penalty under Florida law.
That complicated the process for prosecutors, Hornung
said.
"It has a bad appearance to it," he said of seeking
death against the non-shooters and not the alleged
shooter.
Also according to the indictment, Mitchell was in the
house wearing a mask during the armed burglary. Other
reports released to the public have indicated the
suspects used a 9 mm gun to shoot open a sliding glass
door at the house. Dive teams searched off Alligator
Alley after the shooting, but haven't found a weapon.
According to information previously released by police,
Mitchell attended a birthday party in September at
Taylor's home. He stayed at the house for several days,
doing work around the house to prepare for the part and
was paid $300 in cash.
Mitchell said he saw Taylor give his sister, Sasha
Johnson, $10,000 in a paper bag as a present. Johnson
was dating Wardlow's nephew at the time.
Investigators believe greed was motive for the
defendants making the three-hour drive to the East
Coast.
All four defendants have an Aug. 25 trial date
(news-press.com)