Thirty-three years after Duane Owen fatally stabbed a Delray Beach babysitter and bludgeoned to death a Boca Raton single mother, his lawyers were back in court Tuesday, trying to persuade a Palm Beach County judge he didn’t deserve to die for his horrific deeds.

Like other death row inmates, the now 56-year-old Owen is trying to take advantage of recent Florida and U.S. supreme court decisions that struck down the state’s death penalty as unconstitutional.

Unlike in March, when it took another judge less than 30 minutes to decide that Norberto "Spiderman" Pietri should remain on death row for the 1988 fatal shooting of West Palm Beach police officer Brian Chappell, the decision facing Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley in Owen’s case is complicated.

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Under current law, Owen could get the chance to persuade a jury that he shouldn’t be put to death for slashing and raping 14-year-old Karen Slattery while she was babysitting in 1984. But it’s far less certain that Kelley would be allowed to overturn Owen’s death sentence for beating Georgianna Worden to death with a hammer roughly two months after Slattery was killed.

That’s because of a situation that Owen’s attorney, James Driscoll, called unusual. When the Florida Supreme Court overturned the state’s death penalty last year because it didn’t require unanimous jury verdicts, it set what Driscoll called an arbitrary date that allows some — but not all — death row inmates to seek mercy. The date is June 24, 2002, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Arizona’s death penalty was unconstitutional.

Those sentenced to death by less than unanimous jury verdicts after the date of that landmark Ring vs. Arizona decision are entitled to have their sentences reconsidered, the Florida Supreme Court ruled. Those receiving the death penalty before then cannot have their sentence reconsidered.

Because Owen won a second trial in Slattery’s death, his death sentence didn’t become final until December 2002 — roughly six months after Ring was decided, according to state records. However, his conviction and death sentence in Worden’s death, became final in 1992.

But Driscoll said it would be manifestly unfair not to reconsider both of Owen’s death sentences, especially since juries in both cases voted 10-2 for death and judges imposed it.

Juries recommended capital case sentences but judges made the final decision in Florida until 2016, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s death penalty for flaws it had found in Arizona’s law 14 years earlier, ruling that juries, not judges, should make the decision. However, the U.S. Supreme Court did not address unanimous verdicts in that decision, and the Florida Legislature passed a law this year requiring a unanimous jury verdict for the death penalty after Florida’s Supreme Court threw out last year’s law that required only 10 of 12 jurors to agree on recommending death sentences.

"Mr. Owen’s case shows the arbitrary and capricious nature of the death penalty in Florida," Driscoll told Kelley. "A random date in 2002 is unconstitutional."

Assistant Florida Attorney General Celia Terenzio countered that the state’s highest court "didn’t just throw a dart at a calender" when it decided that those sentenced after Ring are entitled to relief.

"Up until Ring we relied in good faith on cases that said Florida’s death penalty was constitutional," she said. Therefore, she argued, Owen’s death penalty in Worden’s death shouldn’t be overturned because it precedes Ring vs. Arizona.

And in the Slattery case, Owen’s crimes stand out even when compared to those committed by the other 363 inmates on death row, Terenzio said. Slattery was stabbed 18 times. The county medical examiner testified she remained conscious for at least a minute, feeling each excruciatingly painful stab wound, Terenzio said. "She clearly knew of her impending demise," the state’s attorney told Kelley.

But Driscoll countered that the jury should have been given more details about Owen’s horrific childhood. His parents, both raging alcoholics, abused him. After his father committed suicide, he was placed in an orphanage where he was sexually abused. He has gender identity disorder and other mental ills, Driscoll said.

Terenzio said jurors who convicted Owen in 1999 during his second trial for Slattery’s murder were told about his painful past. They rejected his claims his own abuse made him delusional. He claimed he believed that if he killed a woman and then raped her, he would become a woman.

They convicted him despite his insanity defense, she said. Then, 10 of the 12 jurors agreed he should be put to death.

The 10 who voted for death made a reasonable decision, she said. That is a factor Kelley should consider before agreeing to summon another jury to consider whether Owen should be put to death.

Still, she conceded that the Florida Supreme Court has agreed in more than a dozen cases that those whose death sentences became final after Ring was decided deserve to have new sentencing hearings. But she would not concede that Kelley’s hands are tied in the Slattery case or that he should grant a Owen a new sentencing hearing in either murder.

Kelley said he will need additional information before making a final decision. "Obviously, it doesn’t get any more serious than this," he said.

He gave Driscoll and Terenzio until Sept. 15 to submit additional information. He said he would likely hold another hearing before making a decision.

Two others who were sentenced to death for Palm Beach County murders have filed appeals similar to those submitted by Owen and Pietri. They are Jerry Haliburton, who in 1981 told his brother he fatally stabbed his neighbor 31 times just to see if he could kill a human being, and Carlton Francis, who stabbed 66-year-old twin sisters to death in their West Palm Beach home in 1997.