Officers or prosecutors withheld the existence of multiple witnesses and police reports, including one of an attempted armed robbery at a gas station across the street from the furniture store within hours of the murders. The original judge also behaved inappropriately, the lawyers say, getting a doctor to prescribe Valium to a holdout juror, who only then voted to convict.

Withholding evidence is not that uncommon, unfortunately, but it looks like it was especially bad in this case. And giving Valium to a juror is an egregious overreach. The full details of what happened are even worse than it sounds at first glance.

She was under a lot of pressure because she wanted to talk about the evidence and the other jurors didn’t. They yelled at her and heckled her, basically, until she fainted. The judge finds out and says it’s no problem. Defense lawyer asks for a mistrial, gets turned down. Juror says she doesn’t need a doctor. Then the judge makes a phone call, in secret, and gets her doctor to give her Valium. Enough that the other jurors thought she was “floating.”

The worst part is, the Florida supreme court saw no problem with that. They said it wasn’t judicial misconduct, it was just the judge being concerned and looking out for her.