...
By Aliss Higham
Reporter
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
A Florida man convicted of murdering a 5-year-old girl may face execution again due to changes in the law almost three decades after her death.
In 2007, Harrel Braddy was found guilty of murdering Quatisha Maycock and attempting to murder her mother, Shandelle Maycock, in 1998. Quatisha died after being thrown into alligator-infested waters in the Everglades.
Now, more than 15 years later, recent shifts in Florida’s death penalty legislation could give him a chance at a new sentencing—or allow him to face the death penalty again under revised jury rules.
Read More on U.S.
Braddy’s case marks the third recent resentencing in Florida's Miami-Dade County. In November, a jury chose to spare Labrant Dennis, who was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend back in 1996. Later that same month, another jury ruled that Rafael Andres should be returned to death row for the 2005 murder of a waitress.
The Crime
Braddy was convicted in 2007 on seven counts, including first-degree murder, attempted murder, and kidnapping, and was sentenced to death.
Prosecutors said that Braddy drove to a stretch of Interstate 75 in the Everglades and left Quatisha in the water alongside the road. A medical examiner reported that she was still alive when alligators attacked her, biting her head and stomach.
Authorities recovered her body two days later. Her left arm was missing, and her skull had been crushed, according to prosecutors. Meanwhile, Shandelle Maycock was found bleeding and disoriented in a cane field, miles from her Miami-Dade County home.
“The defendant...caused this 5-year-old to die, alone in the wilderness, and to be mutilated by monsters of the swamp,” said then Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Leonard E. Glick in his sentencing order. “Adults are supposed to protect children from monsters; they are not supposed to be the monsters themselves.”
...
Florida Death Penalty Legislation
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida’s system for imposing the death penalty was unconstitutional, as it gave judges the authority to decide on a death sentence rather than the jury, violating the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.
Florida lawmakers then amended the law to permit a death sentence recommendation if 10 out of 12 jurors agreed. However, the Florida Supreme Court struck down that change in 2017, ruling that death penalty recommendations must be unanimous.
This decision opened the door for many on death row, including Braddy, to be eligible for a new sentencing hearing.
Under current law, though, he could once again face a death sentence without a unanimous jury decision. In 2023, Governor Ron DeSantis approved legislation allowing juries to recommend death with just an 8-4 vote.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines