Donald Otis Williams v. State of Florida

Donald Otis Williams, who was fifty years old at the time of the crime, was convicted of the 2010 kidnapping, robbery, and first-degree murder of eighty-one-year-old Janet Patrick. A jury recommended that Williams be sentenced to death for the murder by a vote of nine to three, and the trial court, after concluding that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating circumstances, imposed the death penalty. Williams appeals his convictions and death sentence. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const.

For the reasons set forth below, we affirm Williams’ convictions but reverse…