22 October 2023 :
October 19, 2023 - Broward jury sentenced Peter Avsenew to death
Peter Avsenew, who maintained his innocence in court Thursday despite having been convicted twice of the brutal 2010 murders of a couple, deserves to be sentenced to death, a Broward jury decided.
Avsenew, 38, White, represented himself for the penalty phase of his retrial, offering the jury only 2 reasons to spare his life: His good conduct in jail since his arrest, and the fact that the most notorious killer in recent Broward history had his life spared.
“If Nikolas Cruz doesn’t deserve death, who the hell does?” Avsenew asked, referring to the gunman who murdered 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. A judge sentenced Cruz to life in prison after a jury failed to reach a unanimous death sentence recommendation on Oct. 13, 2022.
2 days before the jury recommended life for Cruz, Avsenew’s jury had recommended his execution by a 12-0 vote for the murders of Stephen Adams and Kevin Powell, a couple who took him into their home during the holiday season.
In 2010, 2 days before Christmas, Avsenew beat the 2 men beyond recognition and shot them repeatedly, then stole their SUV, went shopping with their credit cards, and fled to his mother’s home in Polk County.
The 2022 death recommendation for Avsenew was overturned late last year when Broward Circuit Judge Martin Fein learned that jurors joked about the case and admitted watching a documentary in a private social media group before the death penalty arguments formally took place in court.
The new jury listened to evidence on Wednesday and heard closing arguments on Thursday.
Avsenew, who fired his lawyers in September, had also represented himself during the penalty phase of his first trial in 2018. The results of the first trial were overturned by the Florida Supreme Court in January 2022.
In his closing argument Thursday he maintained his innocence, and recognizied that his life was at stake before comparing his conviction with the Parkland gunman’s.
The judge scheduled a status conference for Monday. Next up will be a “Spencer hearing” later in the week, which will give Avsenew a final chance to plead for the court’s mercy before a sentencing hearing is held.
