Death row inmate's appeal prevails; two others denied

TALLAHASSEE -- Death row inmate Rickey Roberts, condemned for the fatal attack on a teenager on a bayside lover's lane in Miami, won an appeal Thursday in the state Supreme Court.

The high court rejected appeals from two other condemned killers.

Roberts prevailed on two points in an unsigned, unanimous ruling: The court granted him a hearing that could win him a new trial; it also upheld a trial judge's ruling vacating his death sentence and ordering a new sentencing.

The evidentiary hearing dealing with Roberts' guilt should be held first because its outcome could affect the need for a new sentence, the court ordered.

Roberts, 48, was sent to death row for the 1984 murder of George Luis Napoles. The 20-year-old was fatally attacked with a baseball bat one night as he sat in a car parked off Miami's Rickenbacker Causeway with two teenage girls.

One of the legal issues at stake involves Roberts' former girlfriend, who testified at the trial that Roberts told her of the murder but later recanted, saying the state had pressured her to testify that way.

Martin McClain, a New York attorney representing Roberts, said he was very happy with the result.

He said the state and the trial judge caused a delay in the appeals by withholding information. Sandra Jaggard, an assistant attorney general in the case, didn't return a phone call for comment on that accusation.

In the other cases returned on Thursday, the Supreme Court denied appeals from Ray Johnston and Michael Bruno.

Johnston, 48, is on death row for the 1997 murder of Leanne Coryell in Hillsborough County.

The unsigned ruling on Johnston was supported by Justices Leander Shaw, Charles Wells, R. Fred Lewis, Peggy Quince and Major Harding, with Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead concurring in the result only.

Justice Barbara Pariente dissented, saying the trial court should hold a hearing into questions about one of Johnston's jurors. The jury's forewoman was removed as the sentencing hearing began because she was arrested on charges of drug possession.

Pariente called it troubling that Johnston's sentence and conviction was being upheld without knowing whether the forewoman used the drug during the trial.

Bruno, 51, is on death row for the 1986 murder of Lionel Merlano in Broward County. The unsigned opinion was fully supported by Shaw, Wells, Lewis, Quince and Harding. Anstead and Pariente concurred in the result only.

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