Cutts awaits decision from courts on sentence modification

OKEECHOBEE- Convicted murderer Kevin Cutts was in Okeechobee for his sentence modification hearing on May 21 and 22. Cutts was asking the courts for a sentence modification on his 1995 murder conviction, arguing that he has been rehabilitated and is fit to re-enter society.

On March 15, 1995, a 17-year-old Kevin Cutts entered the Okeechobee mobile home of 18-year-old Elizabeth Hatfield and shot her multiple times in the head and face with a 9mm Ruger handgun as she slept. Elizabeth’s 8-month-old baby was lying near her. The baby was unharmed.

Kevin Cutts testifies during the trial of Ryan Harris. [Photo by Katrina Elsken/Okeechobee News]

Cutts was a friend of Ryan Harris, Elizabeth's ex-boyfriend and the baby's father. Harris had a volatile history with Elizabeth. She had sought a restraining order against him after their breakup, and he had been arrested for violating it just weeks before her death. According to Cutts's own testimony, Harris drove him to the trailer, handed him the gun, and told him to "just do it," after falsely claiming Elizabeth was abusing the baby and using drugs around the baby. The murder weapon was later found in Harris's home.

In exchange for testifying against Harris, the death penalty was taken off the table for Cutts. Harris was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder, which was reduced to manslaughter on appeal, resulting in just seven years in prison. 

Cutts was convicted on two counts, First-Degree Murder and Armed Burglary with Battery and sentenced in 1997 to two consecutive life-without-parole terms. But following the U.S. Supreme Court's Miller v. Alabama ruling, which prohibited mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles, he was resentenced in 2016 to life with a 25-year judicial review on Count 1, First Degree Murder and consecutive to 24 years on Count 2, Armed Burglary with Battery.

Cutts's 25-year review triggered around 2023, and he was granted a judicial review hearing. His legal team argued he has been rehabilitated and is fit to reenter society. He also filed an amended motion seeking to have the sentence modification apply to both counts, not just Count 1.

The defense argued the review should cover both counts, citing Mack v. State. From Mack v. State comes the precedent that when a juvenile gets consecutive life sentences, you can't just give them a review on the first count and then stack another life sentence behind it. That would make the review essentially meaningless. The logical conclusion from that case is that the review must apply to all counts together.

However, District Attorney Ashley Albright argued before the court that a newer ruling limited the review to only Count 1. In that newer ruling, Johnson v. State, the Fourth District held that a defendant sentenced to consecutive life sentences as a juvenile was to receive a review 25 years into his first-degree murder sentence, and then a second review 25 years into his consecutive life sentences. The court held that this sentencing structure did not violate the Eighth Amendment.

That is a significant departure from the Mack ruling. Rather than requiring the judicial review to cover all counts simultaneously, Johnson says it's constitutionally acceptable to apply the review sequentially, first to Count 1, and then, separately, to Count 2 down the road. District Attorney Albright used this ruling to argue that Cutts's review should apply to Count 1 only, with Count 2 reviewed later on its own timeline.

On May 21, 2026, Judge Leatha D. Mullins ruled that Johnson was controlling and denied the motion to modify the entire sentence, limiting the judicial review to Count 1 only, First Degree Murder. That means even if Cutts wins his release on the murder count, the armed burglary sentence on Count 2 could still keep him incarcerated. However, the Florida Supreme Court's eventual resolution of the Mack/Johnson conflict could change that calculus entirely.

The hearing on rehabilitation proceeded on May 22, with the court hearing testimony from witnesses. Kevin Cutts himself also made an allocution statement to the court.

After the hearing concluded, the judge did not rule from the bench. The defense has until June 26 to file a post-hearing memorandum. A post-hearing memorandum is a document submitted to a decision-maker after all evidence has been presented in a trial or administrative hearing. It serves essentially as a summary of the case.

Following that the State will have two weeks to respond to that memorandum.

The central question before the court is whether Cutts has demonstrated sufficient rehabilitation to warrant release. The outcome hinges on Judge Mullins's eventual ruling, which could come around mid-to-late July.

Listen to a true crime podcast featuring Elizabeth Hatfield's case here.

Elizabeth Hatfield