BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has denied a rehearing request for Crosley Green, putting the man closer to returning to prison where he already served 32 years of a previous sentence for a 1989 murder conviction.
The 11th Circuit handed down the decision to deny the rehearing Thursday, allowing its previous ruling from March to stand, court records show.
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Green was released from prison in 2021 after having been convicted in the April 1989 shooting death of 21-year-old Charles “Chip” Flynn, who was found with a gunshot wound to the chest in a citrus grove. Kim Hallock, who dated Flynn, said they were accosted by a man as they were parked in a secluded area of a park, robbed and driven to the citrus grove, where she fled, according to court documents.
A jury convicted Green of first-degree murder in 1990, and he was sentenced to death, though he was resentenced to life in prison in 2009.
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In the 2018 decision, U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton Jr. granted what is known as a “writ of habeas corpus” that could lead to Green receiving a new trial or being freed. Dalton ruled that prosecutors had improperly withheld evidence about police officers suspecting that Hallock shot Flynn, according to court documents.
In March, a three-judge panel on the 11th circuit overturned that 2018 ruling, stating that the conviction was improperly overturned.
Green’s attorneys had requested a rehearing by the 11th Circuit’s full panel of 11 judges. The lawyers, according to a news release, are now seeking to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting a writ of certiorari — which would require the lower court to send the case to the justices for review
[RELATED: More coverage of the Crosley Green case]
“The Crowell team will petition the U.S. Supreme Court for writ of certiorari, asking the high court to consider the potential national implications of Green’s case, which goes to the heart of how prosecutors must handle evidence in criminal cases. They will also ask the Middle District of Florida to keep Green free as they petition his case to the Supreme Court,” Green’s attorneys stated in their petition to the Supreme Court.
Green’s lawyers claim in their petition that allowing the 11th Circuit ruling to stand could send a signal to prosecutors “throughout the Deep South and indeed the nation” that they could withhold potentially exculpatory evidence in favor of getting a conviction.
Green and his lawyers are set to host a news conference discussing their appeal to the high court on Monday, Sept. 26. The event is set for 12:30 p.m. at a Holiday Inn in Titusville, 4715 Helen Hauser Blvd.
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