Donald Lenneth Banks, Appellant v. State of Florida, Appellee; Donald Lenneth Banks, Petitioner, v. Julie L. Jones…

Summary

The court affirmed denial of Banks’s guilt-phase postconviction claims and denied his habeas petition, concluding that trial and appellate counsel were not ineffective and that the challenged jury instruction and evidentiary rulings did not warrant relief. It held that Banks’s death sentence could not stand because the nonunanimous ten-to-two recommendation did not establish the required unanimous findings concerning aggravation and mitigation, and it vacated the sentence and remanded for a new penalty phase. POLSTON, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part, would have declined to vacate the death sentence.