Pablo Ibar’s lawyer, Joe Nascimento, questioned this Tuesday before the Court of Appeals for the 4th Judicial District of Florida, based in West Palm Beach, the value of the evidence that was used in the last trial in which his client He was sentenced to life imprisonment, considering that they are not “solid” to maintain the sentence. However, the Prosecutor’s Office opposed these arguments, requesting confirmation of the sentence imposed in 2019.
The defense of the Spanish-American citizen therefore asked the three magistrates of the court to annul the sentence handed down more than three years ago and to hold a new trial with “all legal guarantees.” Ibar is currently sentenced to remain imprisoned for life, after being found guilty of a triple murder in the United States whose authorship he has always denied.
The hearing began at two in the afternoon local time in the US state of Florida (8:00 p.m. in Spain) and was held by videoconference. Ibar’s defense supported his request for annulment of the sentence on twelve grounds, among which he highlighted the irregularities that were committed during the process that ended with the conviction of Ibar, as well as the decisions of “absolute bias” in which the Judge Dennis Bailey, who conducted the hearing.
Among these twelve reasons stated, the lawyer questioned the existence of a “tiny” DNA sample belonging to Pablo Ibar in a T-shirt that was found at the scene of the events and that was carried by one of the perpetrators of the crime. The Prosecutor’s Office incorporated it “unexpectedly” before the start of the last trial.
Until that moment, all the analyzes carried out had been negative regarding remains linked to his sponsor. In this regard, Nascimento criticized that the chain of custody of this apparent evidence was “very defective” and that the analysis laboratory had received the shirt in a bag with the seal partially open.
“Unreliable” identification
In the same way, the lawyer questioned before the room the veracity of the testimony of a resident of the area where the crimes were perpetrated named Gary Foy, who was key for the Prosecutor’s Office after stating that he saw Ibar sitting in the passenger seat Casimir Sucharski’s Mercedes car. As he complained in his intervention before the court, the police officers were the ones who led the witness to a “substantial probability of misidentification” by means of a photograph, for which reason he has considered that it is “unreliable” evidence.
Ibar’s lawyer also referred to the actions of Judge Dennis Bailey, who directed the last trial in Broward County and whom he accused of “abusing his discretion.” In this sense, he criticized the judge for removing one of his members from the jury, who reported having suffered pressure from his colleagues, a fact that he made public on social networks. “He should have at least inquired into whether there was actual abuse or pressure or whether it was just the normal vehemence of a jury discussion,” he said Wednesday.
Then the representative of the Prosecutor’s Office, Deborah Koenig, took the floor, who maintained that the judicial process was adjusted “at all times” to legality. Likewise, she argued that in the case of the expelled jury, the judge had made the correct decision and that the courts should not intervene in what are the internal discussions between the members of a jury.
another year of waiting
After the appeal hearing, a period of deliberation between the members of the court now opens. A phase that can last several months and it is not ruled out that the ruling will take a year to be known. In the event that the appeal is not successful in this instance, the defense will go to the Supreme Court of Florida.
Ibar was recently transferred from the Okeechobee (Florida) prison, where he had been since his death sentence was commuted to life, to another private facility. In this last place he carries out various activities and has started a welder’s course.
Pablo Ibar was found guilty of the triple crime that in June 1994 ended the lives of Casimir Sucharski, owner of a nightclub and owner of the chalet where the crimes were perpetrated, and of the young Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers. The three were killed by two individuals who broke into the house.
The sequence of events was recorded by a video camera located in the living room of the house that, at a certain moment, captured the face of a young man with Latino features that the Police identified as Pablo Ibar. However, in the last trial held in 2018-2019, it was proven, even by prosecution experts, that this video did not have sufficient image quality to make any identification.