A Clay County judge has denied a motion by lawyers representing Corey Binderim — a contractor who is charged with first-degree murder in the death of a client, Susan Mauldin — to block the state from seeking the death penalty if he’s convicted and denied a motion to declare Florida’s death penalty law unconstitutional.
Those motions are almost always filed in death penalty cases, but there was another, unusual motion regarding the death penalty. Binderim’s lawyers wanted to consolidate their challenges to the state’s death penalty law with six other cases, including another one in Clay County — the retrial of Michael Renard Jackson.
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Jackson was convicted and sentenced to death in the 2007 rape and murder of veterinary employee Andrea Boyer, but the conviction and death sentence were overturned on appeal.
In the consolidation motion, Binderim’s lawyers argued that death penalty qualifications systematically exclude potential Black jurors and twice the rate of whites.
That motion was also denied.
Binderim’s trial was set to begin last month but has been delayed indefinitely.
He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and burglary charges in the disappearance and death of Mauldin, a British widow who was reported missing from her Fleming Island home in October 2019.
Investigators suspect Binderim was the last person to have seen Mauldin alive.
Court records show Binderim was hired to complete about $12,000 work of remodeling work on Mauldin’s home prior to her disappearance. According to documents released by prosecutors, he repeatedly failed to show up for work and finish the job.
Mauldin’s remains were recovered from a Folkston, Georgia, landfill about three months after her disappearance.
According to court documents, Binderim bought concrete and heavy-duty construction bags on Oct. 24, 2019, a day before Mauldin was reported missing. He’s also accused of dumping 300 pounds of materials at a landfill on the same day.