The panel of the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission filed what is known as a “notice of formal charges” against Judge Nancy Jacobs, who unseated then-Circuit Judge Jared Smith in the 2022 election.
Circuit & County Court
Jury Finds Brenan Hill Guilty In Murder of Savannah Gonzalez, and Faces 25 Years to Life in Prison
A jury of four women and two men found Brenan Hill guilty of second degree murder and two other charges in the shooting death of Savannah Gonzalez, 22, after deliberating two hours and 45 minutes today. He faces life in prison when Circuit Judge Terence Perkins, who presided over the five-day trial, sentences him at a later date.
Brenan Hill Takes Stand in His Defense, Weeping, then Seething that Shooting Savannah Gonzalez Was an ‘Accident’
It was not an exactly calm man the jury saw when Brenan Hill took the stand this afternoon in his own defense. Not the sort of man who helped himself much in his trial on a second-degree murder charge that could send him to prison for life if he is convicted: when the prosecution cross-examined him, he was angry, exasperated and at times barely responsive.
Kwentel Moultrie Pleads to Murder, Will Serve 45 Years in Prison on Series of Convictions
Kwentel Moultrie, the 24-year-old former Palm Coast resident convicted last year of raping a 16-year-old girl, this morning pleaded guilty to a second degree murder charge and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. He will serve that sentence consecutively to the 10-year sentence for the rape charge.
Almost a Good Day for Brenan Hill in Murder Trial: Jury Does Not Hear Him Speak. Then the Hammer Falls.
In the third day of trial for Brenan Hill, 34, who faces a second-degree murder charge in the shooting death of Savannah Gonzalez, 22, the prosecution built its case through forensic evidence and almost a dozen witnesses today, including testimony from a firearm expert who appeared to all but demolish the defense’s claim that Hill could fire the gun accidentally, as he claims.
Jury Hears Brenan Hill in a Confederacy of Lies About Shooting that Led to Girlfriend’s Death
Brenan Hill lied at least six times times about what led to him shooting Savannah La-Rynn Gonzalez in the head on March 26, 2021, including a lie to his mother. The 22-year-old Palm Coast woman never recovered. She died last Nov. 9. The jury heard most of those lies today in Hill’s second day of trial on a second-degree murder charge that could send him to prison for life if he’s convicted.
Jury Selection in Brenan Hill’s Trial on Murder Charge Keys In on Guns, Violence and Intent
Brennan Hill, 32 at the time, shot Savannah Gonzalez in March 2021 near the Microtel in Palm Coast. Hill’s attorney, made his intentions clear in his remarkably brief interactions with potential jurors at the end of a day of jury selection Monday: the shooting was accidental. It had nothing to do with domestic violence. It was a homicide, but not a murder.
Obviously, the prosecution disagrees, though it did not tip its hand today as Bettman did.
Law Enforcement, Court and Incident Round-Up: Sept. 1-8
Running a stop sign leads to an arrest on two felonies, a bored inmate triggers a fire sprinkler, four are arrested for illegally picking palmetto berries, a child drowns in Seminole Woods, Brendan Depa’s pre-trial is postponed.
Ex-Matanzas Student Facing Adult Gun and Molestation Charges Here Is Attending High School in Wisconsin
Marshall Thomas, the former Matanzas High School student who was charged as an adult with gun theft and, separately, charged as an adult with the sexual assault of a Matanzas student at school in May 2022, was enrolled in a charter school in northern Wisconsin after posting $60,000 bond in Flagler County. Both cases are pending, with Thomas’s next scheduled pre-trial in Circuit Court in Bunnell on Oct. 11. A parent in Wisconsin is concerned about Thomas’s presence among students there.
Brendan Depa, Now 18, Is Transferred to the Flagler County Jail to Await Trial
Brendan Depa, the former Matanzas High School student facing a first-degree felony charge of aggravated battery in the beating of a school paraprofessional last February, has been transferred to the Flagler County jail, from the Duval Regional Detention center in Jacksonville, where he’d been held for the past six months.