He is âjust above the cutoff for intellectual disabilities,â and âcouldnât be considered for the death penalty because of his IQ,â which is in the 70s.Â
Carl Wesley Devore, Florida inmate C11889, (Flagler County inmate 198174), born 1996, incarcerated October 2017 at age 21; scheduled for release April 2031
Carl Devore didnât kill a man. But he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for killing his friend and accomplice, Victor Betty, during a home invasion burglary on Palm Coastâs Frank Place in July 2013, even though someone else fired the bullet that killed Betty.
The bullets were fired by Darien Corbett, 21 at the time. Corbett was a resident at the house, and was defending his wife and himself from the assailants. Because of the circumstances of the attack, Devore was charged with the Bettyâs death and faced a second-degree murder charge as well as an armed burglary charge. He could have faced life in prison.
In a plea agreement, the murder charge was lessened to manslaughter with a weapon, a first-degree felony, punishable for up to 30 years in prison, and the armed burglary charge was dropped.
The legal concept of charging an assailant with a killing that someone else carried out in self-defense isnât simple: even the Circuit Judge Craig, who accepted Devoreâs plea this morning, acknowledged the difficulties and asked a few questions about it. So it wouldnât be surprising if Devore, who sat and stood through todayâs sentencing hearing often with an uncomprehending, anxious look on his face, his left leg often nervously, reflexively twitching up and down, had little idea to this day why he was getting punished for a killing he did not commit, during a home invasion he had, at the last minute, sought to abort.
Devore, 21, is not a smart man. He is âjust above the cutoff for intellectual disabilities,â in the words of Steven Bloomfield, a psychologist the defense brought in as an expert witness. In another setting, Bloomfield said, Devore âcouldnât be considered for the death penalty, for example, because of his IQ,â which is in the 70s. Devore himself, an 11th-grade drop-out, told Craig that heâd started having trouble with his studies in middle school. âIn high school it went completely downhill, I wasnât getting the help I was supposed to be getting,â he said.
Sentencing hearings often stretch over hours as the defense brings in witnessesâfamily, friends, pastorsâto speak on behalf of the accused in efforts to lessen the sentence about to be imposed. This hearing was different. It stretched because of Craigâs concern about Devoreâs competence, which became quickly apparent when Craig questioned him directly.
At one point, Devore said he didnât know what the Constitution is. Craig gave him a brief civics lesson on the Bill of Rights, sounding like a father speaking with his middle school child. At times, Sharon Feliciano, Devoreâs attorney, stopped the judge to rephrase what heâd said in even simpler language, with hand gestures to illustrate lengths of time and sentence severity.
âWhat does contest mean?â Devore asked the judge, when Craig was explaining what rights of appeal Devore was giving up.
âContest means fight it,â the judge said. Moments later, Devore showed no confusion whatever when asked what his plea agreement meant, saying out loud and sharply, as if he were the judge, that his sentence would mean â10 to 25 years.â
âYou cut right to the chase,â the judge told him. But that was the only time in the colloquy when Devore showed any sign of immediate, unhesitant understanding.
As the exchange continued, Devore got nervous, the way a student put on the spot gets nervous, when the judge asked him to explain what the prosecutionâs role was. He couldnât answer. He didnât seem to understand why the judge was asking him the question. (Bloomfield, the psychologist, would later explain: âHe gets very nervous in anything where he feels heâs being tested.â)
The Judge explained: he wanted to be sure that Devore was competent enough to understand the process. What Craig didnât tell him was that he was essentially checking off and re-checking off every possible avenue for an appeal based either on insufficient counsel or a claim by Devore that he was insufficiently aware of the sort of plea he was tendering. The lengthy exchange with the judge sounded at times almost callous, if maybe unwittingly so, not only by exposing Devoreâs lack of education or awareness of basic legal concepts, but by implicitly making him reassert his guilt through different answers, whether the judge was asking him about âthe presumption of innocenceâ or what roles the lawyers in the courtroom filled.
The psychologist would later detail his four encounters with Devore, his suicide attempts, his weak personalityâthat of a follower, susceptible to the influence of others in attempts to feel acceptedâhis poor grasp of things but not his stupidity: what takes others a few moments to understand, he needs a lot more time to process. But he eventually understands. âThis is an odd thing for me to say,â the psychologist said. âIf he feels bad enough to commit suicide he feels good enough to chance, so itâs not as if heâs devoid of emotion. Heâs remorseful.â
What invariably surfaces in court in the lives of men and women about to be sentenced, and what surfaced in Devoreâs caseâgrowing up without a father, not getting the help he needed in school, a severe brain injury at one point, his wanting intelligenceâwas designed to elicit sympathy, or at least lessen the severity of his sentence. At one point the psychologist told the judge he hoped that in prison thereâd be awareness about Devoreâs lower intelligence from the Department of Corrections, to protect him from more predatory inmates.
But there was no question about what had led Devore to this day, either: the home invasion that morning in the F Section, an indisputably violent, terrifying shock to the five residents of the house.
Devore had wanted to speak initially, but he told the judge that he was too nervous to do so. He continued crying and did not look up as his mother walked by him, the closest she had been to him in over a year.
âWe donât take any great joy for being in the situation weâre in,â Johnson, the prosecutor, then told the judge. âThis is an extremely tragic situation on many, many levels,â he said, reminding the judge of the night of the attack, when young people, including a very young child, were in their house, minding their own lives, when they were intruded upon. Johnson said that in the end, Devore âmade a choice,â even though thereâs no dispute about his mental abilities, or his never having been in trouble before. âThe fact of the matter is that he made a decision to do what he did that night, and there must be consequences to that,â Johnson said.
Johnson said the 10 to 25 year range was fair, and would be fair whether it was 10 years or 25.
Feliciano asked the judge to take into account the psychologistâs testimony and Devoreâs personality as mitigating factors, as well as his lack of criminal history. He was hanging out with âsocial misfits,â she said, asking the judge to impose a 10-year sentence, not more.
âI agree with counsel on both sides that this is a tragic event, tragic on many levels,â the Judgfe said, citing Devoreâs decision, his family, âeverybody that was in the house,â and the perpetrator killed during the episode. âEveryone in the house that had to suffer through the crime is going to have to live with that as well,â âHowever, that is tempered by the evidence that I heard for mitigation on behalf of Mr. Devore,â Craig said. But 10 years would be âinappropriate.â
âSo the court is going to go ahead and sentence Mr. Devore, weâre going to sentence you to 17 years in the Department of Corrections, with credit for 441 days.â
In effect, Devore can be released in a little over 12 years, given his 15 months of jail time so far, and the fact that he can get out, with good behavior, after serving 80 percent of his sentence. The judge did not mention probation: it was a considerably more forgiving sentence than Devore or his family may have sensed in the shock of the moment, as Craig in effect imposed as close to an actual 10-year sentence as he could, once credit and other factors are taken into account, without quite going that low.
