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AKA: Billy Joe Melton or
Hillbilly
Sixth Judicial Circuit, Pinellas
County Case# 91-16659
Sentencing Judge: The Honorable
Claire K. Luten
Resentencing Judge (I): The
Honorable Nelly N. Khoutzam
Resentencing Judge (II): The
Honorable Brandt C. Downey, III
Attorneys, Trial: Frederick S.
Zinober & James A. Martin – Private
Attorneys, Direct Appeal:
William Bennett, Richard Watts & Michael
Schwartzberg – Private
Attorney, Resentencing (I):
Steven L. Bolotin – Assistant Public Defender
Attorney, Resentencing (II):
John C. Fisher – Public Defender
Date of Offense: 10/11/91
Date of Sentence: 12/10/93
Date of Resentence (I):
09/12/97
Date of Resentence (II):
08/06/04
Circumstances of Offense:
On 09/07/93, Troy Merck, Jr. was
convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
On the night of 10/10/91, Merck
and his companion, Neil Thomas, who came from North Carolina to Florida,
attended a bar in Pinellas County.
The bar closed at 2:00 a.m. and
several of the patrons remained in the bar’s parking lot. Several of
the patrons and witnesses, including Merck and Thomas, had consumed a
substantial amount of alcohol during the evening, while at the bar.
In the parking lot, Merck and
his companion were leaning on a parked car with multiple occupants
inside. One of the occupants of the car asked them to not lean on the
car.
Merck and his companion
sarcastically apologized. James Anthony Newton approached the car and
engaged in a conversation with the occupants in the car. Merck made a
snide remark to Newton, after overhearing an occupant of the car,
Katherine Sullivan (who had been drinking and was an off-duty bartender
at the bar), congratulating Newton on his birthday. Newton told Merck
to mind his own business, and Merck attempted to provoke a fight, which
Newton refused.
Merck walked over to his
car, unlocked his passenger-side door, took off his shirt, and threw his
shirt in the back seat. Merck approached Newton once again and began
punching him in the back. Sullivan testified that she saw a glint of
light from some sort of blade and saw blood spots on Newton’s back.
Sullivan testified that she ran back into the bar and told bouncers to
call 911.
At the trial, Sullivan described the person who stabbed
Newton as a man wearing khaki pants. She stated that it was Merck, not
Thomas, who made snide remarks and goaded Newton to fight. James
Carter, the chief security for the nightclub, ran out to the parking lot
after Sullivan reported the stabbing. He saw a car pulling out of the
parking lot and was able to get the license plate number.
Another
coworker was assisting Newton, who was moving and coughing up blood.
According to medical examiners, Newton died from multiple stab wounds,
but the main fatal wound was to the neck.
At
trial, Thomas acknowledged that he had eight or nine felony convictions
and claimed to have changed his life since then. According to Thomas,
he and Merck met just a few weeks before the incident at a bar in Ocala
and became friends. On the night of the incident, Thomas stated that he
had been drinking heavily, as was Merck.
Thomas admitted he was trying
to provoke Newton into a fight, but was not getting a response out of
him. Merck became very agitated with Newton and began beating Newton
from behind, throwing punches. Thomas did not recall giving Merck the
keys to his car, but remembered warning Newton to leave before the
situation escalated.
As
the fight carried on for the next 15-20 seconds, Thomas stated that his
attention shifted away from the fight to the entire parking lot. As
Thomas shifted his attention back to the fight, he noticed Newton bent
over the hood of a blue car and his shirt appeared rather wet. Merck
demanded to Thomas that it was time to leave and he agreed. Thomas
stated that he noticed Merck holding his hand stiffly by his leg as if
concealing something; he had not seen a knife, but was starting to have
suspicion.
Thomas drove away from the parking lot and asked Merck if he stabbed
Newton. Merck admitted the stabbing, while holding a bloody knife in
the air, and said that if he did not kill him, he would find him at the
hospital and “finish the job.” Thomas stated that Merck threatened to
kill his grandmother if he said anything. The two men drove into an
apartment complex to change the license tag of the car.
Afterwards,
they went to a Burger King and then a bowling alley where they shot pool
for 20 minutes. They left their car at the Burger King, after spotting a
police cruiser, and took a taxi back to their hotel room. Thomas stated
that Merck was demonstrating the stabbing repeatedly as if he was
bragging about it.
The next morning, the two men went to retrieve their car, but it was
missing. When they called their girlfriends from North Carolina, the
police were there. Their girlfriends eventually drove down and met the
two men at their hotel. The police tracked them to the hotel after
Thomas called his grandmother.
Deputy Charles Vaughn testified that
when Merck and Thomas’ abandoned vehicle was discovered, a license plate
and a knife were found inside the vehicle. Merck was taken into custody
by the lead investigator of the case, Detective Thomas Nestor, who took
the eyewitness statement from Sullivan on the night of the incident.
Codefendant Information:
Neil Thomas was not charged as an accessory to the murder of Newton.
There is also no evidence that Thomas has a prior incarceration
history.
Trial Summary:
11/14/91 Indicted as follows:
Count I: First-Degree
Murder
11/06/92 Trial ended in mistrial because the jury was unable to
reach a verdict
09/07/93 During
the second trial, the jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts of the
indictment
09/14/93 Jury recommended death by a vote of 9-3
12/10/93 Sentenced as follows:
Count I: First-Degree
Murder – Death
07/15/97 Resentencing (II) trial commenced
07/18/97 Jury recommended death by a vote of 12-0
09/12/97 Trial judge imposed death sentence
08/06/04 Trial court resentenced (III) Merck to death
by a jury vote of 9-3
Case Information:
On
01/21/94, Merck filed a Direct Appeal to the Florida Supreme Court. He
raised five issues. First, Merck claimed that the trial court erred in
imposing the death sentence. Second, he argued that the death sentence
is invalid because the jury heard and the trial judge considered highly
prejudicial testimony not relating to any statutory aggravating
circumstance.
Third, Merck contended the trial court erred in denying
his motion for mistrial based upon a State witness’ reference to the
first trial of this case. Fourth, he claimed that his conviction must
be vacated as a result of the State’s bad-faith failure to preserve
potentially exculpatory evidence.
Finally, Merck claimed the trial
court erred in giving the jury an unconstitutionally vague and overbroad
instruction on the “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel” aggravating
factor. On 10/12/95, the Court affirmed Merck’s conviction and remanded
for resentencing.
On
10/13/97, Merck filed a Direct Appeal for resentencing to the Florida
Supreme Court. On 07/13/00, the Court affirmed the conviction but
reversed the death sentence based on the finding that juvenile
adjudication as to a North Carolina shooting incident was not a
“conviction” within the meaning of the statute making prior conviction
of a violent felony an aggravating factor and that the trial court’s
finding of the aggravator was harmful error. The Court ordered a
complete new penalty-phase proceeding before a jury.
On
09/27/04, Merck filed another Direct Appeal for resentencing to the
Florida Supreme Court, which is currently pending.
FloridaCapitalCases.state.fl.us
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