Florida v. Demorris Hunter

On the evening of May 27, 2002, police found a woman's body wrapped in material and stuffed into the trunk of her own car in a parking lot. She had been strangled to death. Her name was Theresa Ann Green. She was 38 years old.

Twenty-four years later, the man accused of killing her is finally sitting in an Orange County courtroom.

That sentence alone should make you stop and think. Twenty-four years. A generation of time between a woman's death and the trial that is supposed to deliver justice for it. Theresa Green's family has waited nearly a quarter century to hear a jury's verdict. The man charged with her murder, Demorris Hunter, has been locked up for 25 years straight, first in California, then in a Florida county jail, cycling through six different public defenders while the system ground forward at a pace that should concern anyone who believes in the right to a speedy trial.

But there is something else about this case that makes it unlike most cold case trials you will see on any screen.

Demorris Hunter is not a free man fighting to stay out of prison. He is already serving four life sentences in California for killing another woman just months before Theresa Green died. He has been convicted of killing three people total in the state of California. He is 59 years old. He is never getting out.

So why are we here?

The State of Florida wants the death penalty. That is why. The state did not bring Hunter back from California to add years to a sentence that already stretches past his natural life. They brought him back to put him on death row. And that pursuit, that decision to spend over a decade of resources and six rounds of public defense counsel to chase a death sentence for a man already dying in prison, is the engine driving everything about this trial.

The defense could have conceded guilt and fought only the penalty phase. They did not. They are contesting both whether Hunter killed Theresa Green and whether, if convicted, he should be sentenced to death. That tells you something. It tells you the defense sees cracks in a 24-year-old case built on witness testimony from a party, a neighbor's account of driving behind a car, and a statement that may or may not hold up after two decades of time, memory, and institutional turnover.

This is Justice Is A Process. We are here to watch whether the system proves its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Not because a verdict is obvious. Not because the defendant's history makes the answer easy. Because the system's obligation does not change based on who the defendant is or what he has done before. The burden is on the state. Every single time.

Let's begin.

What Demorris Hunter Is Accused Of

The Night of May 26, 2002

In the spring of 2002, Demorris Hunter was living in an apartment building in the College Park neighborhood of Orlando, Florida. He had recently relocated from Oakland, California, and according to investigators, he was using the name Michael Berry. Theresa Ann Green lived in the same building.

On the evening of May 26, 2002, both Hunter and Green attended a party at the apartment of their neighbors, Joyce and Joseph Butler, who also lived in the building. According to statements the Butlers later gave to police, Hunter and Green left the party at approximately the same time. Witnesses reported that both of them fell down the stairs outside the apartment before getting up and entering Green's unit together.

What happened inside that apartment is what the state will try to prove to a jury. According to prosecutors, Theresa Green was strangled to death by manual strangulation. Her body was wrapped in an unknown material.

The Favor

Several hours after the party ended, according to the Butlers' statements to police, Hunter returned to their apartment and asked Joseph Butler for a favor. Hunter allegedly gave Butler the keys to a white van and asked him to follow as Hunter drove Green's car, an Oldsmobile sedan, away from the building.

Joseph Butler told police he followed Hunter. Hunter parked Green's Oldsmobile at a Walgreens and then got into the white van with Butler. When Butler asked why they were leaving Green's car at a pharmacy, Hunter reportedly told him four words that will almost certainly be central to this trial.

"I did something really bad."

Butler told police he said he did not want to hear anything else. The subject was dropped.

The Discovery

Green was reported missing from her Orlando home on May 27, 2002. That same evening, police were dispatched to the area where the car had been left. When they opened the trunk of Green's Oldsmobile, they found her body. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death as homicide by manual strangulation.

Investigators quickly identified Hunter as the primary suspect. But by the time they focused on him, he was already gone. Hunter had left Florida shortly after Green's body was discovered.

The White Van and the Confession to a Friend

When police interviewed Henry Fields, the man who owned the white van Hunter had used that night, Fields provided another piece of the puzzle. According to Fields, Hunter had recently arrived in Orlando from Oakland, California. More critically, Fields told investigators that Hunter had confided in him that he had committed a murder in Oakland before coming to Florida. The victim in that case, Fields said, was a longtime friend of Hunter's girlfriend.

This is the state's case in broad strokes. Party witnesses who saw Hunter and Green together. A neighbor who drove behind him while he moved the dead woman's car. A four-word statement. And a friend who says Hunter admitted to another killing. The question for the jury is whether testimony from 2002, delivered by witnesses whose memories are now 24 years old, holds up under the weight the Constitution demands.

The People at the Center

Theresa Ann Green

Theresa Ann Green was 38 years old when she died. She lived in the College Park neighborhood of Orlando, a historically diverse community just west of downtown known for its tree-lined streets, small apartment buildings, and a neighborhood feel that bigger Orlando developments never quite replicate. College Park in 2002 was the kind of place where neighbors knew each other, where apartment building residents threw parties together, where someone like Theresa Green could walk downstairs and spend an evening with the people who lived in her building.

The available reporting tells us frustratingly little about who Theresa Green was as a person. What her life looked like. What she cared about. Who loved her and who she loved. That is one of the quiet cruelties of cold cases. Twenty-four years of delay does not just erode evidence. It erodes the victim's story. The media coverage from 2002 is sparse. By the time a case reaches trial after this long, the public record tends to reduce a full human life to a name, an age, and a cause of death.

We know she was someone's neighbor. Someone's friend. Someone who went to a party on a warm May evening in Orlando and never came home. We know she was 38, which means she had decades of life ahead of her. We know her family has waited 24 years for this trial, longer than some of the jurors may have been alive. Whatever the jury decides, that wait itself is a wound that no verdict fully heals.

Demorris Andy Hunter

Demorris Hunter is 59 years old. He is charged with first-degree murder and theft in the death of Theresa Green. He has been incarcerated continuously for 25 years, first in California state prison and then in the Orange County Jail in Orlando since 2015.

Before we go further, let me say what I say in every case. Demorris Hunter is presumed innocent of these charges until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That does not change because of his history. That does not change because of what happened in California. That presumption is the bedrock of the system. It applies to everyone or it means nothing.

Now. His history.

Hunter was born in 1967 in Oakland, California. The publicly available record of his life before 2002 is largely a record of violence. In the months before Theresa Green's death, according to prosecutors, Hunter killed a woman in Oakland, someone who was reportedly a longtime friend of his girlfriend. He then relocated to Orlando, using the alias Michael Berry. That detail matters. A man moving across the country under a fake name in the immediate aftermath of a killing is not someone starting fresh. According to the state's theory, he was running.

After Green's death, he ran again. He left Florida shortly after her body was discovered. For two years, he was a fugitive. In 2004, police arrested him in Texas. He was extradited to California, not Florida, to face charges for the Oakland murder first.

In California, Hunter was convicted and sentenced to what has been reported as both 110 years and four life sentences for the murder of the Oakland woman. Multiple news reports indicate he was convicted of killing three people total in the state of California, though the details of the other two homicides have not been widely reported in the Florida coverage. The Serial Killer Database lists Hunter as a suspected serial killer with between two and three confirmed victims, active between 1985 and 2002, with strangulation and shooting as his methods.

That history is devastating. And it creates a tension that will run through every moment of this trial. The jury may or may not hear about the California convictions. If they do, the presumption of innocence becomes almost impossibly difficult to maintain in practice, even if it remains absolute in law. If they do not, the state must prove this case as though Demorris Hunter has no criminal history at all. The Williams Rule ruling on prior bad acts evidence may be the single most important pretrial decision in this case.

Hunter is never leaving prison regardless of what happens in this trial. That is a fact. The only question Florida's pursuit adds to the equation is whether he will serve his time in a California state prison or on Florida's death row.

The Key Witnesses

The state's case will likely rise or fall on a handful of witnesses from 2002. Joseph Butler, the neighbor who says Hunter asked him to follow the car and told him he did something bad. Joyce Butler, Joseph's wife, who hosted the party and can place Hunter and Green together. Henry Fields, the van owner who says Hunter confided about the Oakland murder. Whatever law enforcement officers worked the original investigation in 2002. And the medical examiner who determined the cause of death.

The specific attorneys prosecuting and defending this case have not been widely identified in reporting. What we do know is that Hunter has cycled through at least six different public defenders since arriving at the Orange County Jail in 2015. Six. In eleven years. That fact alone deserves scrutiny, and we will get to it.

The Charges

The Death Penalty

This is a capital case. State Attorney Jeff Ashton's office filed the notice of intent to seek the death penalty in February 2015, shortly after Hunter was extradited from California. In Florida, a death penalty case operates in two phases. The first phase is the guilt phase, where the jury decides whether the defendant committed the crime. If the jury convicts, the trial moves to the penalty phase, where the same jury hears additional evidence, including aggravating and mitigating factors, and recommends whether the defendant should be sentenced to life in prison without parole or death.

The defense filed motions to exclude the death penalty as a sentencing option. Those motions were denied. Death remains on the table.

Florida's death penalty law has undergone significant changes in recent years. Following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Hurst v. Florida in 2016, which struck down the state's previous sentencing scheme, Florida now requires a unanimous jury recommendation for a death sentence. The jury's recommendation, while technically advisory, carries enormous weight.

The Legal Battle

Why This Case Is Going to Trial

Hunter could have pleaded guilty and focused every resource on convincing a jury not to sentence him to death. For a man already serving life in another state, that might seem like the obvious play. Take the conviction, fight the penalty, and argue that death is disproportionate for someone who is already going to die in prison.

He did not do that. The defense is fighting the guilt phase.

That decision tells the story of this trial. The defense sees weakness in a case that is almost a quarter century old. They see witnesses whose memories have had 24 years to erode, shift, and reconstruct. They see a case built not on physical evidence connecting Hunter to the strangulation itself, but on the testimony of party guests and a neighbor who drove behind a car in the middle of the night. They see "I did something really bad," a statement that is damaging but not a confession to murder, and they will argue it could mean many things. They see an investigation that identified a suspect quickly but took 12 years to indict him and another 11 years to bring him to trial.

Every witness who takes the stand will be asked some version of the same question: How well do you remember a night from 24 years ago? And every answer will be measured against the weight the Constitution requires.

The State's Case

The prosecution's theory, based on what has been reported publicly, is relatively straightforward. Hunter and Green were at the same party. They left together. They entered her apartment. Hours later, Hunter enlisted a neighbor to help him move her car. Her body was in the trunk. Hunter made a statement suggesting he knew he had done something wrong. He then fled the state.

The state will likely argue consciousness of guilt through Hunter's post-killing actions: moving the car, fleeing Florida, using an alias. They may seek to introduce his California convictions as evidence of a pattern, though that will depend on whether the court allows Williams Rule evidence, which is Florida's framework for admitting evidence of other crimes to show things like identity, motive, or a common plan or scheme.

Whether the jury will hear about Hunter's California murders is one of the most significant pretrial rulings in this case, and it is one we do not yet have full visibility on. If the jury hears about three prior murder convictions, the guilt phase becomes dramatically harder for the defense. If that evidence is excluded, the state has to prove this case on its own facts.

The Defense Position

The defense strategy has not been publicly detailed, which is typical for a case heading into trial. What we know comes from their actions. They fought the death penalty through multiple motions. They are contesting guilt. And they have had the benefit of something no defense attorney would ever choose but that time has provided: 24 years of witness memory degradation.

Look at the state's evidence through a defense lens. Joseph Butler says Hunter told him "I did something really bad." But Butler did not see a body. He did not see violence. He drove behind a car and received a vague statement. How precisely does Butler remember that night in 2002? Has his account stayed consistent across 24 years? Did law enforcement document his original statement thoroughly enough that any shifts can be tracked?

Henry Fields says Hunter confided about the Oakland murder. But Fields is not testifying about the Green case itself. He is providing character context. And if the California convictions are excluded under Williams Rule, Fields' testimony about Oakland may be excludable too.

The party witnesses saw Hunter and Green leave together and fall down the stairs. That places them in proximity. It does not prove murder. The medical examiner can testify about strangulation. But can forensic evidence from 2002 specifically tie Hunter's hands to Green's neck?

These are the cracks. Whether they are wide enough to create reasonable doubt is why we have juries.

What We Will Be Watching

The Speedy Trial Question

Demorris Hunter was indicted in 2014. He arrived at the Orange County Jail in 2015. His trial begins in 2026. Eleven years in a county jail.

County jail is not prison. County jails are designed for short-term detention. They are holding facilities, not places where anyone is supposed to spend a decade. The conditions, the lack of programming, the transient nature of the population, none of it is built for long-term incarceration. Demorris Hunter has spent 11 years in one.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a speedy trial. That right is one of the most fundamental protections in the Constitution, and it exists for a reason. Delayed trials harm defendants because witnesses disappear, memories fade, and the anxiety of pending charges compounds with every passing year. Delayed trials harm victims' families because closure is indefinitely postponed. Delayed trials harm the public because justice deferred is justice questioned.

My father, Steven M. Askin, spent his career fighting for these rights. He understood that the Constitution does not have a convenience clause. The system does not get to warehouse a defendant for a decade because the case is complicated or the calendar is crowded or COVID interrupted operations or the defendant had a heart attack. The obligation is on the system to move. When it does not, we have to ask why.

Multiple factors contributed to the delay in this case. COVID shutdowns. A heart attack Hunter suffered. And the churn of six different public defenders, which is perhaps the most troubling factor of all.

Six Public Defenders in Eleven Years

This is a death penalty case. Capital cases require specialized training, extensive preparation, and a deep familiarity with the defendant, the evidence, and the strategic terrain. Every time a public defender is reassigned and a new one picks up the file, the clock resets on that preparation. Motions that should have been filed get delayed. Investigation that should have been conducted gets deferred. The defendant's relationship with their attorney, which is foundational to an effective defense, starts over from zero.

Six times.

I am not blaming individual public defenders. Public defender offices across this country are chronically underfunded and overwhelmed. Attorneys leave. Caseloads shift. The system grinds on. But the result is the same regardless of the cause. A man facing the death penalty has had six different lawyers in eleven years. That is not effective assistance of counsel. That is an assembly line.

The Sixth Amendment does not just guarantee a lawyer. It guarantees effective assistance of counsel. We will be watching whether the defense that finally goes to trial was given the time, the resources, and the continuity needed to mount a constitutionally adequate defense in a capital case.

Death for a Man Already Serving Life

Here is the question that sits underneath everything. Demorris Hunter is serving four life sentences in California. He is 59 years old. He is never getting out. If Florida convicts him of first-degree murder, he gets life without parole on top of the California sentences. He still never gets out.

The only thing the death penalty adds is the manner of his dying.

I am not arguing for or against the death penalty here. That is not my job. My job is to watch the system and ask whether it is operating the way it is supposed to. So I will ask the question plainly: What public interest is served by spending 11 years and the resources of a capital prosecution to seek a death sentence for a man who will die in prison regardless?

The state's answer is presumably that Theresa Green deserves justice on its own terms. That her murder stands apart from anything that happened in California. That accountability for her death should not be diminished because the defendant happened to get caught for something else first. That is a legitimate position.

But legitimacy does not exempt a position from scrutiny. Those 11 years of delay, those six public defenders, the resources consumed by a death penalty prosecution for a defendant who is already serving life, those things have costs. Costs to the system, costs to the defendant's constitutional rights, and costs to a victim's family that has waited 24 years for a courtroom.

The jury will decide whether Hunter killed Theresa Green. If they convict, the jury will decide whether he should die for it. We will watch both decisions with the same lens: Is the system doing what it is supposed to do?

Cold Case Reliability

There is a reason cold case trials are different from cases that go to trial within a year or two of the crime. Memory does not freeze. It shifts. It fills in gaps with assumptions. It reorganizes around what a person has been told happened rather than what they directly observed. Twenty-four years is a long time to carry a memory, and the defense knows it.

Every witness in this case will be testifying about events from 2002. Joseph Butler will be asked to recount a night from when he was 24 years younger. The details of what he saw, what he heard, what Hunter said to him, all of it filtered through more than two decades of life. Did Butler tell his story the same way in 2002 that he will tell it in 2026? Were his statements to police in 2002 consistent with each other? Are they consistent with what he says on the stand? These are the questions the defense will press.

Physical evidence from 2002 also faces scrutiny. Was it preserved properly? Has the chain of custody been maintained across 24 years and multiple jurisdictions? Is the medical examiner who performed the autopsy available to testify, or will the state rely on a surrogate expert reading someone else's report? Cold cases test the system's ability to maintain evidentiary integrity over time, and that is exactly the kind of thing we watch for.

The state chose to bring this case after 24 years. That is their right. But the burden does not get lighter because the case is old. If anything, time makes the burden heavier. And that is as it should be.

The Road to Trial

Twenty-four years from death to trial. Twelve years from murder to indictment. Eleven years from indictment to opening statements. Those numbers tell a story about the system that is separate from and just as important as the story of what happened to Theresa Green.