The Florida Supreme Court issued a stay Tuesday hours after lawyers for Cary Michael Lambrix argued more time was needed to review his case in light of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling declaring the state’s death penalty law unconstitutional.
A unanimous 6-0 court issued the stay “pending further order of this court.” Lambrix, 55, faced execution Feb. 11 for murdering two people at his LaBelle trailer in 1983. Justice Peggy Quince, who once worked on the Lambrix case as a prosecutor, was recused.
The two-paragraph order gave no indication where the court might be headed in reviewing the law affecting 390 death row inmates. State lawmakers are at work on an overhaul in response to a Jan. 12 U.S. Supreme Court decision throwing into question the legitimacy of the judge-driven way Florida sentences capital defendants to death.
