21 March 2017 :

The Florida Supreme Court vacated the death sentence of Willie James Hodges, 57, Black. The Court issued an order, citing Hurst, vacating the death sentence and remanding to the circuit court for a new penalty phase to Hodges because he had been sentenced to death based upon a 10-2 jury recommendation for death. Sentenced to death in Escambia County on February 2, 2009 for the Dec. 19, 2001 death of Patricia Belanger, 58. He was also sentenced (not to death) in the murder of Winnie Johnson, 66, in Alabama while burglarizing her home in 2001, and in the raping and stabbing of Laverne Jansen, 81, in Ohio in 2003.