Lanny Horwitz was shot multiple times on the morning of September 30, 2011, in the primary bathroom of his home in Jupiter, Florida. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Lanny and Donna Horwitz had divorced twice but were again living together at the time, along with their adult son. Investigators arrested Donna, and prosecutors charged her with first-degree murder with a firearm. She denied killing Lanny, and her defense argued that the state had not excluded other possible perpetrators.
A Palm Beach County jury convicted Donna of first-degree murder in 2013, and the court sentenced her to life imprisonment. That judgment did not survive appeal. During the first trial, prosecutors introduced testimony about Donna's silence before arrest and before she received Miranda warnings, then relied on that silence in closing argument as evidence of consciousness of guilt. Because Donna did not testify, Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal held in February 2015 that using her silence that way was reversible error and ordered a new trial.
The Florida Supreme Court reviewed the issue and, on May 5, 2016, approved the reversal. The court held that using a non-testifying defendant's pre-arrest, pre-Miranda silence as substantive evidence of guilt violated Florida's constitutional protection against self-incrimination and was also barred by state evidence law. Its decision did not acquit Donna or find the remaining evidence insufficient; it returned the case for further proceedings.
At a second trial in 2017, the jury found Donna guilty of second-degree murder rather than first-degree murder. On September 12, 2017, the trial court sentenced her to 32 years in prison, with credit for time already served. Donna again appealed. On January 31, 2019, the Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed the second judgment without a written discussion of the issues, leaving the conviction and sentence in force.
It identifies only the person convicted and does not name uncharged individuals whom the defense suggested might have been responsible. Coordinates identify Jupiter generally rather than the private residence where Lanny was killed.
