PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – A man on death row since 2000 for a Broward County triple murder six years earlier will get a new trial after the Florida Supreme Court ruled his defense attorney made mistakes and there was a lack of evidence to convict.
The court ruled in a 4-3 decision Thursday that Kayo Morgan, who represented Pablo Ibar, should have hired an expert to question whether the murderer in a grainy surveillance camera video was actually Ibar.
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A co-defendant, Seth Penalver, was granted a new trial in 2006 and was later acquitted.
The court said there was no physical evidence tying Ibar to the murders of nightclub owner Casimir Sucharski, Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers in 1994.
They also noted personal problems that Ibar's lawyer was going through during the trial, including impregnating a drug addict and being charged with battering her.
"As this record bears out, there was simply no excuse for the numerous deficiencies and failures of Ibar's defense attorney," the court said in its ruling.
Morgan died in Georgia in 2014, according to the SunSentinel.
Ibar has been on death row at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford.