Sarah Boone, the Florida woman accused of killing her boyfriend by trapping him in a suitcase, will continue representing herself after a judge denied her request for a new lawyer on Monday.
Boone, 46, is facing a second-degree murder charge for the death of her boyfriend Jorge Torres Jr. in 2020. She is accused of convincing him to get inside a suitcase, zipping it closed and refusing to let him out. When she opened the suitcase the next day, Torres was dead.
The two had been in a relationship for several years before the deadly incident at a home in Winter Park, Florida.
Orange County Circuit Judge Michael S. Kraynick, who is presiding over the case, ruled that Boone forfeited her right to legal counsel on June 28 after she went through eight lawyers. Several cited “irreconcilable differences” as their reason for resigning.
Boone appeared in court on Monday for a hearing on several handwritten motions she submitted from jail, including one for “standby counsel.”
Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP and Orange County Clerk Court Records
In the motion, Boone alleged her “Constitutional right to counsel is being withheld, and forcibly removed.”
“I do not forfeit my right; that was your judgment,” Boone said to Kraynick in court. “And also, I feel that I should have had some kind of evidentiary hearing prior to your decision so I could have a better chance at explaining myself and your understanding…I don’t want to be pro se any longer. I didn’t want to be pro se in the first place.”
Kraynick said her request is “denied, period.”
In another motion, Boone requested money for experts ahead of her trial. Kraynick said a private investigator with Prison Break Investigations has been assigned to the case and funding for a mental health expert was approved.
He also told Boone she would have to be more specific in future requests. Boone’s motion said the name of the investigator and total cost were “TBD” and how to calculate the cost was “unknown by defendant.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to ask for or who I’m supposed to ask for, and again I have yet to receive my discovery, so I don’t even know what it is I need,” Boone said.
Boone previously complained about not receiving all of her discovery at a hearing on July 25. She said she was “thoroughly confused” at that hearing.
Her trial is expected to begin on October 7.
While proceedings have been pushed back for over four years, Kraynick said the trial will not be delayed “for any reason, except by extraordinarily good cause and such extraordinarily good cause shall not include retention of counsel by the defendant.”
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