NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of Patrick Rene McDowell, the man who pleaded guilty to murdering Nassau County Sheriff’s Deputy Joshua Moyers during a 2021 traffic stop.
In a unanimous July 16 decision, the state’s highest court rejected five arguments raised by McDowell challenging his death sentence and affirmed both his first-degree murder conviction and the sentence imposed by a Nassau County judge.
The decision marks another major step in the case of Deputy Moyers, whose death sparked a massive manhunt across Northeast Florida and left the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office mourning one of its own…