Florida Supreme Court upholds convictions, death sentences in 2 Tallahassee murders

Two Tallahassee murderers will remain on Florida’s Death Row after the state Supreme Court upheld their convictions and sentences in separate opinions released Thursday.

Both Gary Michael Hilton and Joe Elton Nixon face the death penalty in their cases, decades apart, in which they were both convicted of first-degree murder.

Gary Michael Hilton

Hilton, a serial killer, was convicted of the December 2007 kidnapping and beheading of 46-year-old Crawfordville nurse Cheryl Dunlap.

He was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2011 and a jury unanimously sentenced him to death.

The Supreme Court has previously upheld the 74-year-old's conviction and sentence, the last time in 2019.

Justices did so again this week in a 6-1 opinion with Justice Jamie R. Grosshans not participating.

Most of the claims in his most recent appeal focus on ineffective assistance of counsel. That case was argued in front of the Supreme Court last fall.

Among other issues, Hilton’s appellate attorney Robert A. Morris argued trial attorneys failed to produce mitigating evidence that would have reduced his sentence and said there was a lack of a cohesive strategy throughout the trial and penalty phases of proceedings.

Hilton — an Army veteran, woodsman and survivalist — has been convicted of murdering six people in three different national forests.

He also is serving life sentences from North Carolina and Georgia.

Joe Elton Nixon

Nixon, convicted 36 years ago, sought his freedom on an intellectual disability claim his attorneys argued should preclude him from the death penalty.

Now 60, he first made an attempt at the argument in 2009 and again in 2015.

An IQ test score below 70 would qualify as an intellectual disability.

In a 2017 evidentiary hearing, a trial court did find he presented convincing evidence but failed to show he had significantly subaverage intelligence and the appeal was denied.

The current appeal claimed the trial court misapplied the legal parameters of intellectual disability.

Justice Jorge Labarga dissented in the 6-1 opinion.

In the mid-2000’s, he sought a new trial over a claim his attorney admitted his guilt to jurors without his consent.

Nixon was convicted and sentenced to death in 1985 for the murder of Jeanne Bickner in Tallahassee.

A year earlier, he approached the 38-year-old state employee in the parking lot of Governor’s Square Mall and asked for jumper cables.

He then kidnapped her, tied her to a tree with the cables and burned her to death.

Source: eu.tallahassee.com, Karl Etters, August 26, 2021

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