Roderick Michael Orme v. State of Florida, 361 So.3d 842

1992: Lisa Redd was murdered and her body was found in appellant Roderick Orme’s motel room; Orme was convicted of first-degree murder.
Initial penalty phase: jury recommended death (7–5); trial court found three aggravators (commission during sexual battery; heinous, atrocious or cruel (HAC); pecuniary gain) and imposed death; affirmed on direct appeal.
Postconviction history: this Court ordered multiple new penalty phases (2005 for ineffective assistance; 2017 for Hurst-related error); prior resentencings again resulted in a death sentence.
At the second resentencing at issue, Orme waived a penalty-phase jury, presentation of mitigation, and his presence; the court took judicial notice of the file and heard victim impact statements.
The trial court found the same three aggravators (sexual battery and pecuniary gain—great weight; HAC—very great weight), assigned limited weight to several mitigators, concluded aggravators far outweighed mitigation, and imposed death.
Orme appealed raising two issues: (1) an Eighth Amendment challenge based on prolonged time on death row (a so-called Lackey claim); and (2) whether the court’s sufficiency and weighing determinations must be made "beyond a reasonable doubt."

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Orme)	Defendant's Argument (State)	Held
Whether prolonged delay on death row (≈30 years) makes execution cruel and unusual (Lackey-type claim)	The totality of circumstances—~30-year delay, multiple resentencings, and claimed reformation—render execution unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment and Fla. Const. art. I, § 17.	Florida precedent rejects prolonged-delay/Lackey claims; similar and longer delays have been held not unconstitutional.	Rejected. Court adheres to established precedent rejecting Lackey claims.
Whether sufficiency and weighing determinations required by § 921.141 must be found beyond a reasonable doubt	Because § 921.141 requires the court to find sufficient aggravators that outweigh mitigation before imposing death, those sufficiency/weighing determinations must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.	Statutory text and Florida precedent impose beyond-a-reasonable-doubt only on the finding of the existence of aggravators—not on the sufficiency or weighing determinations; caselaw consistently rejects Orme’s premise.	Rejected. Court holds sufficiency and weighing are not subject to the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard and follows controlling precedent.

Orme v. State, 677 So. 2d 258 (Fla. 1996) (original conviction and penalty-phase decision affirmed)
Orme v. State, 896 So. 2d 725 (Fla. 2005) (ordered new penalty phase for ineffective assistance)
Orme v. State, 25 So. 3d 536 (Fla. 2009) (post-resentencing affirmance)
Orme v. State, 214 So. 3d 1269 (Fla. 2017) (Hurst-based remand for new penalty phase)
Hurst v. Florida, 577 U.S. 92 (2016) (Supreme Court decision prompting Hurst-based resentencings)
Long v. State, 271 So. 3d 938 (Fla. 2019) (rejecting prolonged-delay/Lackey claim after 30+ years on death row)
Ferguson v. State, 101 So. 3d 362 (Fla. 2012) (rejecting Lackey claim for decades-long death-row confinement)
Lucas v. State, 841 So. 2d 380 (Fla. 2003) (describing Lackey claims as facially invalid)
Booker v. State, 969 So. 2d 186 (Fla. 2007) (noting courts have not accepted prolonged-delay Eighth Amendment claims)
Rogers v. State, 285 So. 3d 872 (Fla. 2019) (holding sufficiency and weighing determinations are not subject to beyond-a-reasonable-doubt)
Newberry v. State, 288 So. 3d 1040 (Fla. 2019) (same)
Davidson v. State, 323 So. 3d 1241 (Fla. 2021) (rejecting premise that weighing/sufficiency require beyond-a-reasonable-doubt)
Bell v. State, 336 So. 3d 211 (Fla. 2022) (same)
Lawrence v. State, 308 So. 3d 544 (Fla. 2020) (statutory interpretation: § 921.141’s beyond-a-reasonable-doubt requirement applies to existence of aggravator only)