{"id":430486,"date":"2026-10-17T13:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T13:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/430486\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T13:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T13:34:16","slug":"prosecutors-can-seek-death-against-accused-witness-killer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/430486\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors can seek death against accused witness killer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Dreamstime<\/p>\n

Dreamstime\/TNS<\/p>\n

Prosecutors can seek the death penalty in the case of a Miami-Dade man accused of having a witness killed for cooperating with the government, an appeals court has ruled.<\/p>\n

In a 20-page order, the 3rd District Court of Appeal cleared the way for prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Julio Montez Morris, 38. A Miami-Dade judge had previously found that prosecutors were blocked from asking a jury to send Morris to Florida\u2019s Death Row because a prosecutor mistakenly filed a waiver of the death penalty in the case.<\/p>\n

\"Julio Julio Montez Morris Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation <\/p>\n

Prosecutors appealed that ruling, and a panel made up of Judges Edwin Scales, Monica Gordo and Kansas Gooden agreed, saying the trial judge treated a \u201cmistaken administrative filing as a binding exercise of prosecutorial discretion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morris, who has been in the Pretrial Detention Center since 2013, is accused in the 2012 murder of 29-year-old Jazzmon Parker. As Morris was facing trial for Parker\u2019s killing, Ezell Finklea, a 61-year-old military veteran and witness who cooperated with Miami-Dade prosecutors despite threats to his life, was gunned down.<\/p>\n

Finklea, a neighbor who knew Morris, witnessed Parker\u2019s murder and told police that he saw Morris execute the victim in the middle of the street. Finklea and his friend Ira Williams, 70, were shot to death when someone walked up to Finklea\u2019s car along Northwest 30th Avenue and fired more than a dozen shots.<\/p>\n

\"Ezell Ezell Finklea, 61, was scheduled to testify in a Miami murder case. But he and a friend were shot to death before the case went to trial. Facebook <\/p>\n

READ MORE: On trial for murder, Miami man charged with ordering assassination of key witness<\/a><\/p>\n

Morris, his cousin Howard Tranard Waters, 36, and James Williams Kelly, 41, were indicted in connection to both killings. Waters remains jailed at the Pretrial Detention Center, and Kelly is under house arrest.<\/p>\n

\"Howard Howard Waters Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation <\/p>\n

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against the trio.<\/p>\n

\"James James Kelly Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation <\/p>\n

But complications surfaced in June 2024, when a prosecutor uncovered that a deputy chief assistant at the Miami-Dade State Attorney\u2019s Office\u2019s legal division had filled out a death penalty waiver form in Morris\u2019 case. The assistant was auditing death penalty cases and was \u201cunaware\u201d that Morris had been charged in connection to Finklea\u2019s and Williams\u2019 murders, according to the appeal court opinion.<\/p>\n

The waiver, the opinion says, was intended to be an administrative record and was supposed to apply only as to Parker\u2019s murder. The waiver bypassed the office\u2019s policies, which requires a recommendation from its death penalty committee.<\/p>\n

The waiver was also not announced in open court and \u201cwent unnoticed by everyone\u201d until the prosecutors discovered it in 2024 and contacted Morris\u2019 attorneys, according to the appeal opinion.<\/p>\n

At a hearing following the discovery, Morris\u2019 defense attorneys argued that the law does not allow that a death penalty waiver be rescinded. Prosecutors, however, argued that they never intended the waiver to apply, especially considering how it was never announced in court.<\/p>\n

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Alberto Milian, who is presiding over the case, found that the waiver was likely filled in error but said prosecutors were \u201c\u2019stuck with that mistake,\u201d according to the opinion. Milian then ruled that prosecutors were prohibited from seeking the death penalty against Morris on all counts.<\/p>\n

\"Julio Julio Morris, pictured here during a Miami court hearing in January 2019, is accused of murdering the key eyewitness in his murder trial. On March 20, 2019, prosecutors charged him with the murder of the eyewitness. David Ovalle Miami Herald <\/p>\n

The appeals court\u2019s opinion issued Wednesday, which supplemented an opinion filed on July 15, found that Milian blocked prosecutors from exercising their discretion, which includes seeking the death penalty. The court reasoned that the judge\u2019s ruling \u201cwill prevent the State from prosecuting its case against Morris as a death penalty case…\u201d<\/p>\n

The court also pointed out that the attorneys in Morris\u2019 case were litigating for several years, unaware of the waiver\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n

The \u201cFlorida Constitution provides that the decision to charge and prosecute is an exclusively executive function, and the state attorney has complete discretion in deciding whether and how to prosecute,\u201d the appeal court said in its opinion.<\/p>\n

In July, prosecutors Scott Warfman and Christine Zahralban tried to have Milian removed from Morris\u2019 case, saying they had a \u201cwell-grounded fear\u201d that the judge is biased against them seeking the death penalty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe State\u2019s fear is not based on adverse rulings,\u201d the filing states. \u201cRather, the State\u2019s fear is based on the reasonable perception that Judge Milian has pre-judged the State\u2019s efforts to have a jury decide whether the death penalty should be imposed on these defendants for these murders, and is biased against the State\u2019s efforts to seek the death penalty in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Milian denied that request in September. The next hearing in the case is set for Nov. 13.<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Grethel Aguila<\/a><\/p>\n

Miami Herald<\/p>\n

Grethel covers courts and the criminal justice system for the Miami Herald. She graduated from the University of Florida (Go Gators!), speaks Spanish and Arabic and loves animals, traveling, basketball and good storytelling. Grethel also attends law school part time.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dreamstime Dreamstime\/TNS Prosecutors can seek the death penalty in the case of a Miami-Dade man accused of having…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-430486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}