Caylor's Death Sentence Upheld by Florida Supreme Court

Florida's Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence for Matthew Lee Caylor who was convicted of raping and killing a 13-year-old girl, Melinda Hinson, at a Panama City motel in 2008.

Caylor is a registered sex offender from Georgia who told police he was selling cocaine and methamphetamines while in Panama City.

Hinson's body was found under a bed in a room in the hotel previously rented by Caylor two days after she was reported missing.

Caylor, also sentenced to life on a charge of sexual battery involving great physical force and 30 years for aggravated child abuse, told police he strangled Hinson with his hands and a telephone cord after the two started to have consensual sex.

He appealed on several grounds, including a claim that the court erred in convicting him for sexual battery involving great physical force, for the courtassigning "little weight" to Hinson coming from a "dysfunctional family," that death is a disproportionate punishment for the crime, and that the death penalty is unconstitutional.

Justice Peggy Quince dissented in part, writing that the state did not present sufficient evidence to support the offense of sexual battery involving great physical force.

Quince wrote that Florida statutes requires the state to "prove that the act of sexual battery occurred without the victim's consent where the victim is 12 years of age or older."