BARTOW — Convicted murderer Mark Anthony Poole will get a new sentencing hearing, but a circuit judge has ruled his conviction for the 2001 murder of a 24-year-old Lakeland man and the rape of his pregnant fiance will stand.
In a 73-page decision, Circuit Judge Jalal Harb denied Poole’s request for a new trial, saying the errors the defense argued were made during Poole’s second trial, whether considered individually or collectively, didn’t rise to the level of warranting a new trial.
“The Court did not find that counsel’s performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness,” Harb stated in his order.
In an evidentiary hearing last year, lawyers for Poole had argued that attorneys representing him during his 2005 trial had told jurors Poole acknowledged that he committed armed robbery, armed burglary and rape. That error, they said, allowed prosecutors to tell jurors Poole never proclaimed his innocence in the murder, which unfairly prejudiced him in the trial.
But Harb has ruled that error didn’t justify a new trial.
“Any deficiency by counsel with regard to any of the claims and subclaims asserted by the defendant, when combined, could not reasonably be viewed as affecting the fairness and reliability of the proceedings or the outcome of the trial,” he wrote.
Poole, 55, was convicted of first-degree murder and related charges following a two-week trial in April 2005, nearly four years after Noah Scott and his fiance awoke in the night to find Poole inside their Lakeland mobile home. Scott died that October morning of blunt force trauma to the head.
The girl testified that Poole beat her with a tire iron and held a pillow over her face as he raped her, asking where the money was, according to court documents. Before he left, Poole returned to the bedroom, where he’d left the girl on the bed, touched her vaginal area and whispered “Thank you,” court records show.
DNA evidence and eyewitness testimony identified Poole as the assailant in the home-invasion attack, court documents state.
The jury voted unanimously to recommend the death penalty against Poole, and Circuit Judge J. Dale Durrance sentenced him to die for the crimes.
In December 2008, the Florida Supreme Court overturned the death penalty against Poole, which led to a second sentencing hearing in 2011. That jury voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty, and Poole was again sentenced to die for the murder. Circuit Judge J. Michael Hunter ruled the brutality of the attack outweighed any mitigating evidence presented by the defense, according to court records.
In July 2016, Poole’s lawyers appealed his conviction and sentence, about six months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida’s death penalty process was unconstitutional.
That Supreme Court decision has led to changes in the state’s death penalty statute, which now requires jurors to agree unanimously that prosecutors have proven the facts in at least one of the statutory factors supporting the imposition of the death penalty. The jury’s vote also must be unanimous to recommend death, whereas before only a simple majority among the 12 jurors was required to recommend that a judge impose the death sentence.
The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that the changes are retroactive in some cases, including Poole’s. Since the jury vote in his 2011 resentencing wasn’t unanimous, he’s entitled to a new sentencing hearing.
No date has been set for Poole’s resentencing. His next hearing is a status conference May 10.
Suzie Schottelkotte can be reached at suzie.schottelkotte@theledger.com or 863-533-9070. Follow her on Twitter @southpolkscene.