TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A decide has denied a request for a new trial for the South Florida matriarch who was convicted within the employed killing of her former son-in-law. Donna Adelson is going through a life sentence for her function within the 2014 murder-for-hire of Florida State College legislation professor Daniel Markel.
Earlier this month, jurors returned guilty verdicts in Adelson’s weekslong trial on prices of first-degree homicide, conspiracy and solicitation.
In a Sept. 25 order, Circuit Decide Stephen Everett rejected Adelson’s attorneys’ arguments that the verdicts weren’t legally justified and that prosecutors relied on hypothesis and inference to construct their case.
Protection attorneys Joshua Zelman and Jackie Fulford had additionally taken concern with two jurors sharing their tales publicly after the trial, together with one who posted a video on TikTok about her jury service and one other who appeared on a real crime podcast.
“The Courtroom concludes the larger quantity of credible proof helps the convictions,” Everett wrote in his order.
“Acknowledged succinctly, there may be proof within the file demonstrating overt actions by the defendant in furtherance of the murder-for-hire scheme,” the decide added.
The case had riveted Florida’s capital metropolis for greater than a decade amid sordid particulars of a messy divorce, tensions with rich in-laws and custody fights resulting in the killing. Markel had been locked in a bitter custody battle along with his ex-wife and Adelson’s daughter, Wendi Adelson, with whom he had two kids. He was fatally shot at his residence in Tallahassee.
Prosecutors argued at trial that Donna Adelson helped orchestrate Markel’s killing after he stood in the best way of letting her daughter and two younger grandsons make the transfer from Tallahassee to South Florida to be nearer to the remainder of the household.
Adelson is scheduled to return earlier than the decide on Oct. 14 for a gathering concerning the case. Her sentencing listening to has not but been scheduled.
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Kate Payne is a corps member for The Related Press/Report for America Statehouse Information Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit nationwide service program that locations journalists in native newsrooms to report on undercovered points.
