TALLAHASSEE – The Supreme Court of Florida has affirmed the first degree murder conviction of death row inmate Michael Lawrence Woodbury, a Maine man who killed another inmate at Okeechobee Correctional Institution (OCI) in 2017.

At the time of the OCI murder, Woodbury was serving a life sentence for killing three people in New Hampshire. According to court reports, Woodbury shot and killed three people on July 2, 2007, at the Army Barracks store in Conway, N.H. He pleaded guilty and received three life sentences. Woodbury reportedly claimed credit for manipulating New Hampshire authorities into shipping him to a prison Florida in 2009. Woodbury also claimed to be familiar with Florida’s prison system from his time served for a bank robbery charge from 1996 to 2002.

In a  trial in Okeechobee County, Woodbury pleaded guilty to the murder of his cell mate at OCI. The 12-person jury recommended the death penalty.

Woodbury, who represented himself, was accompanied with his standby counsel Stanley Glenn and Shane Manship. Prosecuting on behalf of the State of Florida from the 19th Judicial Circuit were Assistant State Attorneys Ashley Albright and Don Richardson.

19th Judicial Circuit St. Lucie County Circuit Judge Sherwood Bauer later told the jury, “While I find it very unusual, given such an important case, to have someone who chose to represent themselves, it’s certainly a constitutional right and I respect Mr. Woodbury’s choice to represent himself in the case if that’s what he feels was in his best interest. He made that choice, he confirmed it on multiple occasions.”

Evidence at trial showed Woodbury barricaded the door to the cell he shared with Antoneeze Haynes at OCI on Sept. 22, 2017, and preceeded to brutally assault Haynes for hours, using his fists, boots and makeshift weapons. The attack was a hostage situation which lasted about four hours. Woodbury surrendered when he realized a forcible extraction was imminent.

At his first appearance in court, Woodbury invoked his right to represent himself at trial, which prompted the court to conduct a Faretta inquiry. The next time he appeared, he remained adamant about wanting to represent himself. The court continued to renew the offer to appoint counsel throughout the trial and had standby counsel in the courtroom.

During the second day of the trial, Woodbury changed his plea to guilty. The judge excused the jury and went through the plea form line by line, with Woodbury’s input, and Woodbury indicated he understood the death penalty was still a possibility. The judge conducted another Faretta inquiry, and found Woodbury competent to waive his right to counsel. Woodbury insisted on representing himself in the penalty phase of the trial.

In his appeal, Woodbury argued the trial court erred by granting his waiver of counsel and request to proceed without first ordering a mental health hearing; failing to order a competency hearing; accepting a guilty plea that was not entered intelligently; failing to renew the offer of counsel at the start of the defense case and when Woodbury announced his change of plea; accepting Woodbury’s waiver of mental health mitigation without appointing special counsel to present mitigation evidence; finding that the murder was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner, and instructing the juror on that aggravator; admitting a non-comprehensive presentence investigation report that contained impermissible sentencing recommendations; assigning minimal weight to the mitigator of extreme mental or emotional disturbance; rejecting a special jury instruction on mercy; and failing to instruct the jury that it must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravators outweighed the mitigators and were sufficient for the death penalty.

After reviewing the case, on April 15, 2021 the Supreme Court of Florida affirmed the original conviction and sentence.

“Because Woodbury has not demonstrated any reversible error, we affirm the judgment of conviction and sentence of death,” concluded the majority opinion.

Justice Jorge Labarga concurred with the majority, but added: “While I agree that Woodbury is not entitled to relief, I write to emphasize the importance of ensuring a defendant – especially one who is facing the death penalty – is competent to conduct the basic tasks necessary to represent one’s self at trial. Here, where the defendant had a significant mental health history, a competency evaluation would have been in order.”

Editor’s note; Matteo Tullio’s coverage of the trial contributed to this article.