A hitchhiker accused of leaving a motorist on the side of a Sumter County road, hog-tied, raped and stomped to death, could become the first white to be executed for killing a black person in the state of Florida.
A 12-member jury, consisting of one black, took about 50 minutes earlier this month to decide on the death penalty for Carl Dausch, 53, in the death of Adrian Renard Mobley, a black man.
The 8-4 vote was one more than required to give Dausch death over life in prison.
According to the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, blacks have been executed in the murders of 254 white victims since a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed states to resume use of the death penalty.
But only 17 whites have been executed on convictions of murdering black victims during the same time period. None of those executions have taken place in Florida.
According to Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, no white person has ever been executed for killing a black throughout all of Florida's history.
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