ORLANDO, Fla. – Convicted killer Bessman Okafor is once again going before a jury to decide if he should get the death penalty for the 2012 murder of a witness to a home invasion.
Jury selection in the resentencing began Monday.
Okafor was sentenced to death in 2015 for the murder of Alex Zaldivar. Okafor was convicted of killing Zaldivar because he was set to testify against Okafor in a home invasion case.
But in 2016, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that juries in a death penalty case must make a unanimous recommendation for the death sentence. That meant Okafor had to be retried.
Then, in 2020, the Florida Supreme Court, with more conservative justices, reversed its previous decision and said that juries did not have to be unanimous in a death penalty case.
Earlier this year, the Florida Legislature passed a new law that said a jury vote of 8 to 4 on a death penalty recommendation was sufficient for that sentence.
Okafor is now being resentenced under that new law.
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