ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — An Orange County man convicted of beating an elderly woman and burning her alive inside her home is dodging the death penalty for the time being.
Juan Rosario was scheduled to be sentenced Friday, but instead, Orange County Judge Leticia Marques said the convicted murderer should get a second trial. She said his guilty verdict will stay, but his sentence could change.
The judge said the jury will be called back in to decide for a second time whether Rosario should get life without parole or death.
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The judge said new evidence and testimony could sway jurors.
It's been more than a year and a half since Rosario was convicted of murdering 83-year-old Elena Ortega back in 2013.
Prosecutors said Rosario was looking for money and beat Ortega when she wouldn’t give it to him. They said he then set the house on fire because he thought she was dead and he wanted to cover his tracks.
Instead, the fire killed her.
Since the last trial, Rosario got new lawyers who had more than a year to find new witnesses who claim he's intellectually disabled and should not be executed.
Now, the judge is blaming his original lawyers for being ineffective because they didn't have that evidence.
The new trial could take months or years to complete.
Prosecutors said they’re going to appeal the judge’s ruling for a second trial.
Instead, they want the death sentence from the first trial to stick.
Cox Media Group
