Driver Plummets Into Deep Ravine In Predawn Wreck
January 19, 2016
A driver escaped injury when he flipped his pickup truck into ravine near Enon, outside Walnut Hill, during the predawn hours Tuesday.
The driver was southbound on South Highway 99 when he failed to negotiate a 90-degree curve at a railroad crossing at South Highway 99 and Highway 97A. His Chevrolet 2500 pickup left the roadway and crashed about 15 feet down into a deep ravine, coming to rest almost upside down in the 5:38 a.m. crash.
The driver was able to free himself from the truck and refused medical treatment.
The accident is under investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol; further details have not yet been released. The Walnut Hill and Molino stations of Escambia Fire Rescue, Atmore Ambulance and the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office also responded to the crash.
Pictured top and below: A driver crashed about 15 feet down into a ravine early Tuesday morning about eight miles from Walnut Hill. Pictured bottom: The truck was not visible from the top of the ravine. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
One Injured In Highway 95A Single Vehicle Crash
January 19, 2016
One person was injured in a single vehicle wreck early Tuesday morning on Highway 95A at North Chipper Road, near Cantonment.
The driver lost control and ran off the roadway and into the woodline about 5:50 a.m. He was transported to an area hospital by ambulance with injuries that were not considered to be life-threatening.
The accident remains under investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol; further details have not yet been released. The Molino and Cantonment stations of Escambia Fire Rescue and Escambia County EMS also responded to the crash.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Kristi Price, click to enlarge.
Cantonment Celebrates With Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade (With Gallery)
January 19, 2016
Hundreds of residents of Cantonment celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday with a parade in the area around Carver Park.
Hundreds gathered to enjoy the parade, plus catch candy, beads and other items.
For a photo gallery, click here.
NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
FDOT: Highway 29 Delays In North Escambia
January 19, 2016
Drivers on Highway 29 near Century and McDavid can expect possible delays this week.
Through Friday, workers will continue construction activities with southbound lane closures near Century all week. Also, there will be northbound lane restrictions from Champion Drive in McDavid north and crews continues construction of guardrail pads.
All activities are weather dependent and may be delayed or re-scheduled in the event of inclement weather. Motorists are reminded to use caution, especially at night, when traveling in a work zone and to watch for construction workers and equipment entering and exiting the roadway.
Pictured: Lane closures and construction activities in Century. NorthEscambia.com file photos, click to enlarge.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day Marked With Parade In Atmore (With Gallery)
January 19, 2016
Martin Luther King Jr. Day programs were held across the area on Monday.
In Atmore, a parade with Grand Marshal H.K. Matthews, a prominent local civil rights leader, wound through the streets, ending with a program featuring guest speaker Matthews at Escambia County High School.
For a photo gallery, click here.
Pictured: The annual MLK Day Parade in Atmore. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Identity Released Of Deceased Escambia Jail Inmate
January 19, 2016
Authorities have released the identity of an inmate that died this past weekend at the Escambia County Main Jail, the seventh death since the county took over jail operations.
Alfred Wesley, 63, was discovered unresponsive by infirmary staff during an hourly welfare check. Corrections officers and medical staff immediately began CPR, called EMS at 8:58 p.m. EMS arrived at the jail at 9:05 p.m. and reached the hospital at 9:27 p.m. He was pronounced dead at 9:49 p.m. by hospital staff.
Wesley was arrested December 9 for trespasing and was behing held with bond set at $1,000. Upon arrival, he received a medical evaluation as part of the intake process. He had been housed alone in the infirmary for psychiatric care since December 12 and checked every hour by jail staff. On the morning of Friday, January 16, Wesley was seen by the facility’s nurse practitioner and psychiatric physician. He was responsive and cooperative.
The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office was notified of the death and is investigating as is standard procedure.
Blue Wahoos Kick Off Reading Program At Jim Allen Elementary
January 19, 2016
The Pensacola Blue Wahoos kicked off their second year of Kazoo’s Grand Slam Reading Program at Jim Allen Elementary School last Friday morning. Blue Wahoos staff members and Kazoo, the team’s mascot, acted out the beloved baseball take, “Casey at the Bat,” to get students excited about reading.
The program will be presented over the next few weeks at schools throughout the Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.
Kazoo’s Grand Slam Reading Program is designed as an incentive to excite and motivate students while developing a lifelong love for reading. Students in grades 3-5 are asked to read four books of their choosing during a four week period. Every student in the program receives a Blue Wahoos gift and all classrooms with 100% participation will be entered into a drawing to win a free classroom trip to a 2016 Blue Wahoos home game.
Courtesy photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
State Looks For Answers After Supreme Court Ruling In Nine Mile Road Murder
January 19, 2016
Florida lawmakers are pledging to remedy the state’s death-penalty sentencing structure after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that the state’s method of giving judges the power to impose death sentences is unconstitutional.
But legal experts fear that the Legislature’s fix may only be a temporary solution for the capital punishment process, one of the most complicated legal arenas rendered even thornier after the decision.
The high court’s decision came in the appeal of convicted murderer Timothy Lee Hurst, who was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of fast-food worker Cynthia Harrison in Pensacola. Harrison, an assistant manager at a Popeye’s Fried Chicken restaurant on Nine Mile Road where Hurst worked, was bound, gagged and stabbed more than 60 times. Her body was found in a freezer.
The jury in the Hurst case recommended a death sentence to the judge, but its vote was split seven to five.
In sentencing Hurst to death, a judge found two aggravating circumstances — that the murder was committed during a robbery and that it was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.”
But the decision should not have been the judge’s, Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote.
Days after the 8-1 ruling, leaders in the Republican-controlled Legislature — as well as judges, defense lawyers and prosecutors — were scrambling to sort out the implications of what some called a deceptively simple order.
What is clear is that lawmakers intend at the very least to resolve the main issue addressed by the court in the case, known as Hurst v. Florida.
“This is something that we have to do,” House Judiciary Chairman Charles McBurney, R-Jacksonville, said. “We will be addressing the issue which was raised specifically by the Supreme Court in that decision, and then looking beyond the narrow decision to see how it affects other aspects of the death penalty statute to ensure its future constitutionality as well.”
Florida requires juries to make recommendations to judges regarding the death penalty after considering aggravating and mitigating circumstances, with judges ultimately imposing the sentences.
But Florida’s unique law giving judges the power to decide whether defendants should face death equates to an unconstitutional violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury, Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote in the majority opinion.
The ruling did not address whether juries’ decisions about imposing death sentences should be unanimous, as is required for convictions. Among the 31 states that have capital punishment, Florida is one of only three states that do not require unanimous decisions regarding death sentences.
Two other Florida cases that deal with the unanimity issue are now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lawmakers are exploring the issue of unanimous decisions and whether the Hurst ruling should apply retroactively to inmates already sentenced to death — Attorney General Pam Bondi’s lawyers, who represent the state in death penalty cases, contend that it should not.
“I think that when we consider how our death penalty system is structured, we need to be clear-eyed in making sure that it can withstand not only the current legal situation but future legal challenges,” said Sen. Rob Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican and former prosecutor whose law firm represents a defendant who could face the death penalty.
But, in an election year in which swing-state Florida is considered critical for a Republican White House win, whether GOP lawmakers will pass any legislation that could be perceived as watering down the death penalty is questionable.
Speaking to reporters, Senate President Andy Gardiner said he had “mixed emotions” about unanimous jury requirements.
“I think you’ll see us more focused on the Supreme Court ruling as opposed to the unanimous side,” Gardiner, R-Orlando, said.
But doing the minimum to conform Florida law with the high court ruling is problematic, said Florida International University law professor Stephen Harper, who runs the school’s Death Penalty Clinic.
“My hope is that the Legislature goes far enough to require unanimity in both the decision that somebody is death eligible and that somebody will get the death penalty. And if they don’t do that, they’re only inviting more litigation and waiting for the next shoe to drop. They may fix it temporarily, but they’re not going to fix it permanently,” he said. “They’re only going to put a Band-aid on a much bigger problem.”
The Hurst decision also likely comes with a price tag for Florida taxpayers. Prosecutors, public defenders and state-paid lawyers representing Death Row inmates told lawmakers this week that the ruling will increase their workloads.
“The potential impact is, at a minimum, you’re going to see a lot of litigation from individuals in the pipeline that we thought were already out of the pipeline,” 8th Judicial Circuit State Attorney William Cervone told a Senate budget committee.
It is unclear how many of the 390 prisoners on Florida’s Death Row — the second highest-number in the nation — may be affected by the decision.
“In theory, any defendant who raised this specific issue on appeal would have an argument to go back. We don’t know how many that will be,” said Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, a Miami Democrat who has renewed his push for unanimous jury verdicts to impose the death penalty.
The sentencing issue has a special sense of urgency because two Death Row inmates are scheduled to be executed in February and March.
In the case of Cary Michael Lambrix, slated to be die by lethal injection on Feb. 11, the Florida Supreme Court ordered the state and Lambrix’s lawyers to present arguments regarding the impact of the Hurst decision. The court is operating under what is called an “expedited schedule” because of the pending death warrant, signed by Gov. Rick Scott in November.
Last week, Scott ordered Mark James Asay to be executed on March 17. Asay’s lawyer, Marty McClain, said the U.S. Supreme Court decision is more complicated than lawmakers may realize.
McClain contends that the ruling combined with current Florida law require a unanimous jury decision to impose the death penalty because state law requires unanimous jury verdicts to convict defendants of capital murder.
“The Hurst v. Florida opinion is very subtle. It takes a while to understand all that’s there,” McClain said. “The problem with the state’s position is they’ve oversimplified this. They just want it to go away.”
by Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida
Century Library To Get Faster Data Connection
January 18, 2016
The Century Branch Library’s data connection to the outside will soon be getting faster.
The Escambia County Commission is set to approve an agreement with Southern Light, LLC, to provide a fiber optic connection to the library. This will provide a high speed fiber data connection between the Escambia County Library Century and the Main Library Branch with a monthly fee of $762.
The present T1 connection between the facilities is insufficient to progress with newer technology, according to county officials.
Once approved by the commission, work will be scheduled for the underground connection from the street to the building. The installation is expected to take just one day.
Pictured: The Century Branch Library. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
No Injuries In Highway 97 Crash
January 18, 2016
There were no injuries in a rear-end type crash late Sunday afternoon on on Highway 97 near Molino. Everyone involved in the 5:06 p.m. crash just north of Sunshine Hill Road refused medical treatment at the scene. The accident is under investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
