Notorious Broward killer approaches third bid to avoid death penalty
Cold, calculated and premeditated. Heinous, atrocious and cruel.
The 1996 murders of DeAnn Emerald Mu’min, 11, and Alicia Sybilla Jones, 7, could scarcely be described any other way. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that the wrong person — a judge — did the describing instead of a jury, so the man who killed those two girls is on his way back to a Broward courtroom for a third shot at avoiding Florida’s death penalty.
Howard Steven Ault, 57, was convicted in 1999 of both murders by a jury that later recommended his execution by a vote of 9 to 3. Eight years later, after he was granted a new sentencing hearing, Ault heard from a second jury. This one recommended his death by a 9 to 3 vote for Jones’ murder and a 10 to 2 vote for Mu’min’s.
Ault was one of dozens of death row inmates granted new trials after the Supreme Court struck down Florida’s death penalty process as unconstitutional in 2016. For Ault, the key issue is that jurors never officially determined that prosecutors had proved the existence of “aggravating factors” beyond a reasonable doubt. When Ault was originally tried, that decision was in the hands of Broward Circuit Judge Marc Gold. The Hurst v. Florida ruling held that the responsibility should rest with a unanimous jury.
“Nobody asked them. That’s the bottom line,” said defense lawyer Mitch Polay, who represented Ault at his second penalty-phase trial in 2006 but is not involved in the next retrial. “They made a recommendation of life or death, but it was just a recommendation.”
It’s hard to imagine the jury would not find the murders were cold or cruel. Already a convicted pedophile in 1996, Ault befriended a homeless woman who was living out of a pop-up camper in Oakland Park’s John Easterlin Park. As the woman’s two daughters were walking home from school on Nov. 6, 1996, Ault lured them to his home with the promise of Halloween candy. He raped the 11-year-old sister, Mu’min, while 7-year-old Jones watched. After killing them, he hid their bodies in the attic of his Fort Lauderdale home.
Ault has a long history of filing conflicting motions and statements with the court and his lawyers. In 1997, before his first trial, he sent his lawyer a letter offering to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty. A month later, he withdrew it.
In 2011 he sent Gold a letter asking to drop his appeals and set an execution date. Gold scheduled a hearing and brought Ault before him. But once they were in the same room, Ault balked. He told the judge he had not taken his psychiatric medication the night before the hearing, a failure that would have invalidated any decision he made about dropping his appeals.
Ault’s best chance to avoid the death penalty evaporated earlier this year when Florida passed a new law that no longer requires juries to be unanimous in recommending death, though they still have to be unanimous in finding aggravating factors.
In his previous trials, Ault never got a unanimous death recommendation.
Ault is due in court Nov. 15 as he tries to convince the new judge on his case, Martin Fein, to allow him to fire his lawyer and get a new one appointed.
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-304-5256.
