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USA - Alan Wade + wife + son (FL) |
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USA - Florida. Alan Wade resentenced to life without the possibility of parole
June 16, 2022: Alan Wade resentenced to life without the possibility of parole Alan Wade, now 35, White, was sentenced to death on March 4, 2008 (see HoC) after he and 3 others were convicting of kidnapping a vulnerable couple and burying them alive in 2005. He was granted a re-sentencing trial by the Florida Supreme Court and will now spend life in prison instead. For his role in the crime, Wade was sentenced to death — but a landmark 2016 decision by the Florida Supreme Court, Hurst v. State, found that a capital sentencing jury must vote unanimously, which had not been the case in Wade’s 2008 sentencing. Then, jurors voted 11 to one in favor of the death penalty. In a dramatic reversal in 2020's State v. Poole, however, the Florida Supreme Court said they “got it wrong” when they made the 2016 decision, and that non-unanimous votes for the death penalty did not violate the defendant’s constitutional rights. Although the decision in favor of unanimity in death sentences was overturned, the new ruling had “limited reach” — meaning that it would not retroactively rescind the re-sentencing orders granted to more than 100 death row inmates in Florida, including Wade’s. Wade’s resentencing trial began on June 9 and ended Thursday with jurors recommending that Wade be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. That decision was approved by a judge after 3 1/2 hours of deliberation, according to First Coast News. Wade’s defense attorney, Blake Johnson, told jurors that his client took part in kidnapping and killing Carol and Reggie Sumner, both 61, just 47 days after his 18th birthday. On July 8, 2005 Wade, Jackson, Cole and Nixon went to the Sumners’ Jacksonville home, where they bound the frail couple with duct tape under the threat of a toy gun. They then put the couple in the trunk of their own Lincoln Town Car. Carol and Reggie held one another there, once they wriggled free of their restraints. At sentencing, jurors agreed that though Wade’s crimes were “cold, calculated, and premeditated,” they did not fit the standard of being “heinous, atrocious, and cruel,” therefore recommending life in prison over the death penalty. Tiffany Cole and Michael Jackson remain on death row for their roles in the double-murder, but are both also awaiting resentencing due to the Florida Supreme Court's 2016 decision, according to First Coast News. Bruce Nixon is serving a 45-year sentence for his cooperation with the prosecution. Meanwhile, Wade has married a French woman, Sigrid, he met by mail, and with her he also had a child. The couple maintains secrecy about how they conceived the baby, as conjugal visitation is forbidden on death row. The couple isn't revealing any details of how they conceived their baby boy, as Sigrid wants to reveal this to her son when he is older.
Jury recommends life sentence for Alan Wade, man convicted in 2005 killing of Jacksonville couple – Action News Jax https://www.news24.com/parent/family/parenting/family-fun/watch-woman-mysteriously-conceives-a-son-with-death-row-husband-20210218 (Source: Action News Jax, 16/06/2022)
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