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2 1 - 1 2 - 2 0 0 4 Judge denies killer's request for new trial
Tuesday, December 21
PUNTA GORDA -- A circuit judge has denied a convicted killer's request for a new trial, and the attorney for the death row inmate has vowed to appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.
A jury decided more than a decade ago that Englewood resident Jack Rilea Sliney should die for his role in the death of 70-year-old pawnshop broker George Blumberg. Sliney, 19 at the time, repeatedly stabbed the elderly man with scissors and bludgeoned him with a hammer.
 Jack Rilea Sliney Sliney's attorney, Thomas Ostrander, argued at a hearing in May 2003 that his client's two previous lawyers did not explore the theory that Sliney suffered from steroid rage at the time of the killing.
The attorney asked Circuit Judge Donald Pellecchia, who presided over Sliney's trial, for a new trial or a new sentencing hearing.
Among other arguments, Ostrander said that had the jury known Sliney had drug problems, they would not have given him the death penalty. Sliney, who turns 32 Thursday, sits on death row at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford.
Pellecchia rejected the argument in a lengthy order filed Dec. 14 in circuit court. The judge said that Sliney "never said anything about the consumption of alcohol, steroids or anything else" at the time of his confession the day of his arrest on June 28, 1992.
Kevin Shirley, a former Sliney attorney, said in a 47-page deposition filed in March 2002 that he didn't pursue the steroid issue because Sliney continued to profess his innocence. "He told me that he was using," Shirley said, according to a transcript.
Keith Hartley Wittemen Jr. of Englewood, then 17, confessed to going to Blumberg's Ross Pawn Shop in Englewood with Sliney and stealing jewelry and guns while Sliney attacked Blumberg. Wittemen was sentenced to life in prison in 1994.
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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
