10-22-98--

Julio Mora smiled when he was sentenced to death twice Wednesday afternoon.

"Bravo! Bravo, judge!" Mora said after Broward Circuit Judge Paul Backman finished reading the 28-page order in which he explained why Mora should die.

The order will make Mora, 72, the oldest man on Florida's death row and put in motion automatic appeals that make the average stay there about 10-1/2 years.

Questions of Mora's mental health have dogged the case from the beginning. The order also reinvigorates the debate of whether the mentally ill should be subject to capital punishment.

Mora was convicted on April 30, 1997 of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder for shooting and killing pregnant attorney Karen Starr Marx and his former boss Clarence Rudolph, and 1 count of attempted 1st-degree murder for shooting and wounding Maurice Hall, Rudolph's attorney.

The group was at coastal reporting Services, in downtown Fort Lauderdale, for a deposition in a $10 million wrongful termination lawsuit Mora had filed against Rudolph, 54.

Rudolph headed the Senior Community Service Employment program, which was subsidized by the American Association of Retired Persons. Mora had worked in at least 3 jobs for Rudolph and was working as a computer consultant at the time of the shooting.

Minutes after the deposition began, Mora pulled a 9mm handgun from his briefcase and fired 10 shots.

Marx, 30, who was 4 months pregnant with her 1st child, was the wife of Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney Joe Marx. She was at the deposition as a favor for another attorney, who couldn't make it.

Hall is a former Palm Beach County Circuit Judge.

Joe Marx, who attended each day of the trial, had only a brief comment after Backman handed down the sentence.

"We're just glad it's over," he said as he and his father-in-law, Wally Starr, boarded an elevator outside the courtroom.

Marx's emotions were more evident inside the courtroom as Backman read his order. He detailed the suffering Karen Starr Marx must have endured before Mora fired a 4th shot into her back as she lay on the floor begging for her life.

Joe Marx alternately leaned forward and put hands on his face or sat back in the courtroom bench and pursed his lips. His eyes occasionally reddened.

Mora's attorneys, Dennis Colleran and Ken Malnik, unsuccessfully presented an insanity defense, which failed despite the testimony of 3 mental-health experts who testified that Mora was suffering from a "persecutory delusional disorder" in which he believed the people in the room, particularly Rudolph, were out to kill him.

They tried again in May 1997 when it was time for the same 12-member jury that convicted Mora to recommend a sentence, but the jury recommended 8-4 to Backman for death.

They raised the issue again earlier this week, hoping to persuade the judge to wait before pronouncing the sentence. The plea fell on deaf ears.

"The expert and non-expert testimony in conjunction with the evidence presented regarding (Mora's) life and character fails to persuade this court that at the time the murder of Clarence Rudolph and Karen Marx were comitted, (Mora) was suffering from any mental illness, impairment, or emotional disturbance..." Backman wrote. "... It is the determination of this Court that you, Julio Mora, have by your actions, forfeited your right to live amongst a free society, in fact, you have forfeited your right to live."

Colleran said the case presented surprise after surprise for him. He said there were mounds of evidence, dating to the mid-70s, that supported his argument for insanity. Among them: Mora once was evicted from an apartment because he had wired his front doorknob with an electric current. He built a makeshift hut inside another apartment, to keep out laser beams he thought were being sent from his ex-wife. Just before the 1994 killing, Mora put foam sealer in the electrical sockets and outlets in his apartment, placed fans throughout the apartment to keep the air circulating, installed a giant exhaust fan in 1 of his front windows, brought a gas mask and even rigged a makeshift oxygen tent above his bed.

He said Rudolph was pumping poisonous gas into his apartment.

"It's surprising that the jury wouldn't take the testimony of 3 doctors as opposed to 1 doctor who testified for the state who disagreed," Colleran said. "That carried on to the death recommendation and then all the way down the line to the death sentence. I believe the nature of the crime and the fact that there was a tape recording of it happening carried a lot of weight with the jurors and with the judge."

Experts opposed to the death penalty say executing a man who may be mentally ill is a mistake.

"The human mind is very complex and we're just learning how it works," said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center based in Washington, D.C. The center opposes the death penalty.

"(Mental illness) doesn't excuse someone who commits a terrible crime, but does that mean someone must be eliminated from the human community?" Dieter asked. "We have life sentences to protect society from these people. But to play God and decide who should live and who should die? We don't have the ability to make that kind of distinction."

Dieter said only about 1 % of people convicted of 1st-degree murder are sentenced to die.

Proponents of the death penalty say there is a place for the death penalty.

"There are some crimes that are so heinous and offensive that no punishment less than death would be appropriate," said Robert Pambianco, chief policy counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation, also in Washington, D.C. "Anything less would trivialize the crime. There are enormous safeguards built into the system. You will find that the death penalty is reserved for cases that are overwhelmingly cruel and callous."

(source: Sun-Sentinel)