Man who assaulted woman, killed husband in Fort Worth home invasion sentenced to life
A man who was found guilty of a 2017 “home invasion-style” aggravated robbery after representing himself in court was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison, according to a news release from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
James Floyd, 55, was convicted of breaking into the west Fort Worth home of John Porter and Diane Porter, both 69 years old at the time. Prosecutors said Floyd used the metal legs of a cocktail table to beat John Porter before fatally shooting him in the head.
Floyd also shot Diane Porter in the stomach. He then stole the couple’s bank card and demanded the ATM PIN to withdraw money, jurors found April 14 when they convicted him of robbery.
Floyd represented himself in the first part of the trial, where he claimed he was being framed, but called on court-appointed standby counsel to represent him in the sentencing phase.
Before driving off in the couple’s 2008 Kia Sorento SUV, Floyd told Diane Porter he would return to the home and kill them if the PIN didn’t work, she said. John Porter died in a hospital nine days later.
John Porter’s death was explained to the jury, but that element of the case was not a focus of this trial.
The District Attorney’s Office had initially sought the death penalty for Floyd in the related capital murder indictment in John Porter’s death. The office in January waived the death penalty. The capital murder charge is pending an appeal in the Second Court of Appeals, according to the news release.
Prosecutors originally wanted to try Floyd for both the aggravated robbery and capital murder charges at the same time, but an opinion from the Second Court of Appeals on March 25 ended that plan.
Floyd has sought the appellate court review of a trial court order denying his claim that a second capital murder trial would violate his double jeopardy rights. A mistrial was declared in 2020, near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, because the jury had been reduced to 10 jurors.
Floyd had no connection to the Porters. On the morning of the shootings and robbery, Floyd, then 50, had been at the nearby house of a man with whom he had been having a sexual relationship for several months, according to the affidavit supporting a warrant for Floyd’s arrest.
Lisa Callaghan, one of the assistant criminal district attorneys who tried the case, told the jury the proper sentence for the crime was life in prison.
“It cannot be remedied,” Callaghan said, according to the release. “It’s time for her [Diane Porter] to have some justice.”
Floyd was in 1983 convicted of aggravated rape and aggravated robbery in Kaufman County.
Art Clayton, the other assistant criminal district attorney prosecuting the case, told the jury that Floyd is broken.
“All this is a wasted life,” Clayton said. “He has repeatedly shown that he chooses to be violent. You can put an end to that today.”
The jury decided on the life sentence after 30 minutes of deliberation, according to the release.
Senior District Judge Bob Brotherton presided over the trial as a visiting judge.
Staff Writer Emerson Clarridge contributed to this report.
This story was originally published April 20, 2022 at 4:02 PM.