July 7 TEXAS----new execution date Jaime Elizalde has received a Nov. 2 execution date; it should be considered serious. FLORIDA: Fla. high court overturns 1 death sentence, upholds 4 others The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the death sentence of a man convicted of a 1996 Highlands County murder, but rejected appeals from 4 other death row inmates. The court ordered that Donny Crook's death sentence be thrown out and that he instead be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for the fatal stabbing and beating of Betty Spurlock, a bar owner. In a 6-1 decision, the court said that while Crook brutally killed the victim, the sentencing judge overlooked mitigating factors, including evidence from medical experts that Crook had brain damage and was borderline mentally retarded. Spurlock, 59, co-owner of the Bull Penn Bar, was stabbed and beaten. Her blood was found on Crook's T-shirt. The Supreme Court rejected appeals from 4 other death row inmates, including Michael Duane Zack, a drifter convicted of killing 2 women he met at beach bars in the Florida Panhandle. The court also refused to throw out the death sentences of Scott Mansfield, convicted of the grisly killing of Sara Robles in Kissimmee in 1995, and Robert Eugene Hendrix, convicted of killing his cousin Elmer Scott, who was going to testify against him in a burglary case, and Scott's wife Michelle in 1990 in Lake County. Also denied a reprieve from death row was Michael Robinson, sentenced to death for the 1994 murder of Jane Silvia in Orange County. Robinson called himself a "menace to society" when he was 1st sentenced and said he wanted to be executed. In his confession, Robinson told police he beat the 40-year-old woman with a claw hammer and then sliced through her chest to quiet the gurgling that could have alerted neighbors. (source: Associated Press)
