ORLANDO, Fla. — The penalty phase of Markeith Loyd’s murder trial — at which the jury that convicted him is to recommend whether he should face execution or life in prison for killing Orlando police Lt. Debra Clayton — was unexpectedly delayed until December during a hearing Friday.
The trial’s next phase, which was supposed to start Saturday, instead will begin Dec. 6 at the Orange County Courthouse.
The delay resulted from a ruling by Circuit Judge Leticia Marques that Loyd will be allowed to testify about a beating he suffered from the officers who arrested him in January 2017 outside an abandoned house in Carver Shores.
After a nine-day search following Clayton’s killing, officers surrounded the house on Lescot Lane, where Loyd had been hiding out. After he crawled out of the home, four Orlando Police Department officers punched, kicked and hit Loyd with their rifle muzzles in a beating that caused him to lose an eye.
A police helicopter recorded the beginning of the beating before the camera abruptly swung away. The officers involved were later cleared of criminal wrongdoing or policy violations.
Marques said Friday she felt obligated to allow Loyd to talk about the episode, as a mitigating factor for his sentencing.
“I’ll let him talk about the loss of his eye, who did it, and I’ll let the helicopter video in,” the judge said, while adding that she would not allow a “free-for-all on the police ... indicting every police officer that appeared on the scene and had literally nothing to do with what happened to Mr. Loyd.”
The judge granted the sentencing delay to allow prosecutors to prepare. They strongly objected to allowing the use-of-force testimony.
The 12-member jury plus alternates have been staying at a hotel throughout the trial, sequestered to avoid encountering news coverage of the case. Marques said she would release them Saturday to return home with instructions on how to remain impartial until December.
They will not be sequestered again during the penalty phase, the judge said, adding that it would be pointless to do so after sending them home for a month.
“They’re either going to follow the rules or they’re not,” she said.
Loyd fatally shot Clayton Jan. 9, 2017, at a Walmart on Princeton Street after she tried to arrest him for killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Sade Dixon.
Loyd was convicted of first-degree murder in 2019 for killing Dixon and her unborn child, but he avoided the death penalty after jurors recommended he be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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