Overview
- Harrel Braddy, convicted in 2007 and originally sentenced to death for the murder of 5-year-old Quatisha Maycock, is being resentenced in Miami-Dade Circuit Court with jury selection underway.
- The resentencing follows years of legal shifts after a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upended Florida’s judge-driven death-penalty scheme and led to new state standards.
- Under a 2023 law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, jurors can recommend death on an 8–4 vote, creating a path for Braddy to face execution again.
- Prosecutors say Braddy abducted Quatisha and her mother in 1998, left the child near Alligator Alley, and a medical expert testified she was alive when alligators bit her; her body was found days later with her left arm severed.
- Braddy’s case is the third recent Miami-Dade death-penalty resentencing, following a life verdict for Labrant Dennis and a renewed death recommendation for Rafael Andres, and the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on the new nonunanimous jury law.