Sunday, October 21, 2007

Panel visits Southwest Florida to look at reasons for juvenile crime


By ANN MARINA, Daily News Correspondent

Originally published — 3:19 p.m., October 20, 2007
Updated — 10:03 p.m., October 20, 2007

Felony offenses committed by juveniles in Florida increased by 4 percent over the last two years, and the number of youths being transferred to adult courts rose sharply, by 17 percent this past year.

To address the increase in crime and other key concerns for at-risk juveniles, public hearings were held in the Bonita Springs area this past week by the Florida Blueprint Commission for Youth.

Created by the Department of Juvenile Justice, the commission has 25 members who are community leaders and policy experts. Six public hearings are being held throughout the state this fall, and the commission will make its recommendations to Gov. Charlie Crist in December.

Commission Chairman Frank Brogan is Florida Atlantic University’s president and is a former lieutenant governor.

“We’re looking at what’s being done well, and what needs to change,” Brogan told commissioners, professionals, and community members gathered as the hearing began Wednesday at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa in Estero.

“The success of this commission depends on participation from those familiar with juvenile justice concerns in your community,” Brogan said.

Juvenile recidivism, the over-representation of minority youths in detention, and an increasing rate of girls entering the justice system are some of the issues being examined by the Blueprint Commission.

One of the youngest speakers at the public hearing was Nathaniel Young, 19. A resident of Palm Beach County, Young recently graduated from the Broward Intensive Halfway House. He’s currently attending ATI Vocational and Community College in West Palm Beach, working toward a career in air conditioning and refrigeration.

Young is also studying business administration, and would like to have his own business.

“What helped me stay out of trouble was finding a trade I enjoy and getting excited about my positive future,” Young said. “Kids need confidence and support to develop career goals. I’m glad I was encouraged to pursue my interests.”

“Zero tolerance” is another issue currently under scrutiny by the Blueprint Commission. Under this policy, a student possessing any drug or weapon on a public school campus may be arrested and possibly expelled and charged with a crime.

“Since the enforcement of zero tolerance, there’s been a spike in juvenile misdemeanor arrests in Florida,” Brogan said. “The way the policy is interpreted and enforced has brought many young people into the juvenile justice system, causing them to be labeled as criminals for life.”

Some schools are now making adjustments in their handling of the zero tolerance policy, Brogan said.

“Many communities have responded to the effects of the policy and are finding ways to keep schools safe by dealing with chronic offenders while striving to keep youth out of the juvenile justice system,” he said.

Cynthia Noonan serves on the Juvenile Justice Council in Indian River County, and works with EdOptions, a private company providing educational products for alternative study programs.

“Kids who drop out of school are more likely to develop delinquent behavior,” she said. “I encourage the Blueprint Commission to address dropout prevention and support after-school programs.”

Between 3 p.m and 6 p.m. on weekdays, there’s a peak in crimes committed by youth.

Noonan attributes this to the “latch-key kid” syndrome, where children come home from school to an empty house.

“We have so many single-parent families now, and many parents work two jobs,” she said.

Bill Naylor, manager of the Lee County sheriff’s Juvenile Assessment Center, thinks more parental involvement would help reduce the juvenile crime rate.

“We processed about 5,000 youth at our center during 2006,” he said. “I see many parents and agencies reacting, instead of responding. We need to develop relationships with our youth, and make better efforts at prevention.”

“Jail does not rehabilitate a kid, as some parents seem to think it does,” Naylor added. “Rather, it puts them in with other kids who are in trouble, and increases their chances of committing more crimes.”

Jeff Shicks directs a youth program in Fort Myers called The Bridge.

“We did an informal poll of kids in the area, and the main complaints we heard were that their parents don’t spend time with them, or they don’t listen to them,” he said. “We try to provide the support and quality time that some youth are lacking at home.”

---

Contact Ann Marina at writerannak@yahoo.com
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In Bay County, it's still 1963

By Elisa Cramer

Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer

Friday, October 19, 2007

No one who observed the boisterous gloating in and outside of a Bay County courtroom last week would have thought that a child had died.

"We're on cloud nine," defense attorney Waylon Graham said, "and there's nothing sweeter than having eight not-guilty verdicts."

When Mr. Graham boasted after the jury's Oct. 12 verdict that he was going to party and "drink lots of alcohol and smoke a lot of big cigars," he clearly did not have in mind the 14-year-old boy whose death a year and a half earlier led him to court to defend a guard who had helped beat the teenager until he fell limp, into a coma and was placed on life support.

Mr. Graham had a message for the governor after an all-white jury spent about an hour and a half deciding to acquit of manslaughter the seven guards who beat the black teenager at a juvenile boot camp and a nurse who stood by and watched the 40-minute attack: "I'd like to say to Charlie Crist: Put this in your pipe and smoke it."

In fact, Mr. Graham's message was aimed beyond the state's chief executive to, as he described during the trial, all outside "agitators" who dared meddle in his county.

It was the same phrase white segregationists used in an effort to slur civil rights activists - especially from Northern states - in the 1960s. Its use was just as deliberate last week in small-town Bay County, where racial divisions and an influential network of good ol' hometown officials are on overt display.

So angered by outside agitators, Bay County State Attorney Steve Meadows hired the former head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who led the coverup of the beating and the medical examiner who incredibly claimed that Martin Lee Anderson died of a previously undiagnosed - and typically nonfatal - blood disorder.

To underscore the town's aversion to outsiders, Mr. Graham asked an out-of-town medical examiner where he grew up. Dr. Vernard Adams - who, with a team of experts, had determined that Martin Lee Anderson died of suffocation by the guards, who placed their hands over the teen's mouth while forcing ammonia fumes into his nose - answered Maine.

Mr. Graham aimed his response at the jury: "I grew up right here."

Mr. Graham's Panhandle birthplace is Port St. Joe - where the murders of two white gas station attendants in 1963 were wrongfully pinned on Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee, two African-American men.

According to TheSt. Petersburg Times, as Mr. Graham strutted before CourtTV cameras after the verdict, Bay County Circuit Judge Michael Overstreet, who had returned to the courtroom after presiding, watched, chuckling and smiling. Even the local sheriff sat with the guards' families throughout the trial.

For the same reasons that the investigation correctly was moved out of Bay County by then-Gov. Bush, the trial should not have been held there. Several potential jurors begged to be released because they had ties to the guards, to Martin Anderson's family, to the corrections system. Residents told reporters before the trial that their minds were pretty much made up - whites were siding with the guards, four of whom were white, two black and one Asian.

Nor should the state have omitted the fact that the guards' so-called restraining techniques - kneeing in the back, striking Martin Anderson's wrists and limbs, dragging him around - had been banned by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice in 2004. Before Martin Lee Anderson's beating death, the state Department of Juvenile Justice had ignored 180 use-of-force reports from the Panama City boot camp - including manhandling of teens for shrugging or smiling.

Because of outside "agitators," the state acknowledged in a settlement with Martin Lee Anderson's family that the teenager had "complained of breathing difficulties but was not given the proper medical attention" and "the entire matter was captured on security surveillance video camera and was released to the public only after The Miami Herald and CNN sued."

Because of outside "agitators," the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating under federal civil rights laws.

Because of blind hometown loyalty at best and racism at worst, only those outside "agitators" can point out how fouled up things are inside Bay County.
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Lethal injection

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WHEN WILL FLORIDA UNDERSTAND? - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WHEN WILL FLORIDA UNDERSTAND? - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Last year when the State of Florida executed Angel Diaz, it set in motion a set of events which gave most the hope that a review of a less than humane system of killing would finally take place. Now, a year later, after what seemed to be an encouraging turn of events, we are sorrowfully faced with protocols which have in essence not changed, protocols which in other states have been reason enough to halt executions. Angel Diaz’s horrifically botched execution, reluctantly but unavoidably, resulted in an investigation of lethal injection procedures in Florida which for years have walked inmates to their death without review. Set against the growing tide of people against the death penalty in the US and the abominable course of events the day Mr. Diaz was murdered, the DOC was pressured into exposing a system which can only be described as a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition regarding cruel punishments. Cruel and appalling are the only two words we can use to describe the 34 minute suffering of Angel Diaz.
At this time Florida is preparing itself to proceed with it’s sanctioned killing . Even after a State investigation and a public hearing, very little has changed since Mr. Diaz’s execution. Governor Crist has proceeded to sign the death warrant for Mark Dean Schwab, scheduled to be executed in November, under claims by the Department of Corrections that the State’s execution team has now been trained under new procedures. Nothing could be further from the truth. Experts have been quick to observe that any changes have been hastily made and fall short of the measures necessary to prevent another botched execution. Concerns about the secrecy of the DOC in conducting executions and lack of any detailed outline of the training or qualifications necessary in the execution chamber are still haunting concerns. It appears in fact that one of the few quantifiable changes to procedure is the addition of a clock in the execution chamber which witnesses within and outside the chamber can view, along with making the said chamber brighter so observers can see the procedure more clearly and take better notes. Do these changes constitute serious attempts to revise the system or is their value nothing more than cosmetic? Perhaps just an attempt to mask the fact that nothing at all will change. Neither of these so called changes address the real issue………. what is being done to ensure that the inmate is totally unconscious and not suffering unspeakable pain which he cannot communicate to those around him?
If it is at all possible to set aside the emotional issues when it comes to the death penalty and it’s value as a deterrent to anything, and focus on what we are told are the logistics of this event, we see several issues immerging: issues which have not been addressed. What we are being told by the DOC is that executions will now be presided over by two new ‘trained’ wardens and the chief of the prison where Death Row convicts are housed. Presumably this is to improve efficiency. Yet at no point are the medical aspects of the execution taken into consideration, nor the fact that this essentially medical procedure requires the presence of medically trained personnel to assess the inmate and his level of consciousness at all times. How can a so called constitutionally valid death by lethal injection ever be performed without the presence of medical personnel and sophisticated medical equipment? This requires a clinical setting with detailed protocol in place. We are lead to believe that the level of consciousness of the condemned inmate is left to the law enforcement officer who presumably will shake the prisoner and call his name to determine the level of awareness he has. Unbelievable! Considering the effects of the paralytic drug which has been administered to him and doesn’t permit him to respond while still hearing. How does this conform to the 8th amendment which forbids cruel and unusual punishment in any execution? Recently three federal judges in three very different states of the US have determined that the drug cocktail used to kill an inmate (an anesthetic, something to induce muscle paralysis and something to stop the heart) could cause excruciating pain if an inmate is not sufficiently anesthetized when one or both of the second drugs are administered.
Paralysis, respiratory failure and slow suffocation preventing breathing and thwarting the inmate from crying out surely cannot be the ‘humane’ ending that the DOC alludes to! In addition the 8th Amendment requires the participation of medically qualified personnel and a degree of clinical proficiency, yet the protocols guarantee nothing more than a vague assurance that the Warden will select as executioner someone who is "fully capable of performing the designated functions" . Could there be anything more vague? Last year a memo to the DOC recommended the use of a bispectral index monitor to determine the levels of consciousness required for an inmate to pass without pain; it’s use was declined. Yet again the DOC falls short of it’s so called ‘guarantee’.
What ‘humane’ death are they referring to? Circuit Judge Carven Angel has decided that Angel Diaz’s death was not botched, that he died within a reasonably short time after the chemicals were injected in a manner that was painless and humane. Quite an about face from his previous misgivings that the DOC procedures were laden with irregularities. If we are therefore to believe that a screaming inmate represents an inhumane death then why does the DOC find it necessary to paralyze the inmate so that he cannot cry out in pain? It is doubtful that many individuals subjected to this procedure have been anaesthetized adequately enough to ensure a level of consciousness necessary to not inflict pain and without the paralyzing agent to immobilize their screams, how many deaths would actually be seen as ‘humane’? There is no provision in the so called revised protocol which eliminates the use of this paralyzing agent and no consideration given to the absolute necessity of providing indispensable equipment to monitor consciousness.
And it is cocooned within a set of unchanged practices, that Ian Lightbourne (whose case is being used to litigate the lethal injection issue) has his stay of execution lifted and Mark Schwab faces the chamber. There is no doubt that these executions will happen at the hands of a State who’s only requirement is that the executioner be an adult and who’s procedures are no better than before Angel Diaz was tortured. No killing can ever be ‘humane’ ! Even when performed under the most clinical of circumstances it represents an irreversible trauma to the body which is violent by it’s very nature. Are we to believe that these minor changes are anything more than pro-forma acts after comments made by Judge Angel in the Lightbourne hearings in July? Is it enough that prison officials will take care not to move the gurney onto which a prisoner is strapped during an execution, and watch the inmate's arms for signs that a needle has been ministered? There is more than reasonable doubt about this! The state won't change the chemicals used in executions, despite medical testimony that the three-drug combination could be excruciatingly painful and secrecy shrouds procedures in several states always in an attempt to cover botched executions. Is this practice what we have to look forward to in the future? The public has a right to know how the killing is being carried out, the procedure should be clear and out in the open. The failures in protocol design, implementation, monitoring and review which in the past have led to the unnecessary suffering of at least some of those executed, have not been changed in their essence in Florida. Participation of doctors in protocol design or execution is ethically prohibited; therefore adequate anesthesia cannot be certain. What guarantee is there therefore that unnecessary cruelty and suffering can be prevented? As things are, so little of what really matters has changed and one can only wonder how many more botched executions it will take place before the killing stops.
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Saturday, October 20, 2007

Woman convicted in Fla. couple's slaying

A jury convicted a woman of robbing, kidnapping and murdering a retired Florida couple who she helped bury alive in rural Georgia.
Tiffany Cole, 25, was found guilty Friday of first-degree murder, armed robbery and kidnapping. The bodies of Reggie and Carol Sumner, both 61, were found buried in a shallow grave in Georgia near the Florida state line in July 2005.

Cole met the Sumners in Ladson, S.C., where her stepfather was their neighbor. The Sumners had recently moved to Jacksonville.

"I could hear Reggie's blood cry out when the verdicts were announced, the Rev. Jean Clark, Reggie Sumner's sister, told The Florida Times-Union. "Justice is served."

Cole testified that she did not know of plans to kidnap and kill the couple. She said she thought her co-defendants were just going to rob them.

Circuit Judge Michael R. Weatherby said the same jury will recommend life in prison or the death penalty at sentencing in November.

Cole's boyfriend, Michael Jackson, also was charged with the crime. He was found guilty and has been sentenced to death.

Alan Lyndell Wade and Bruce Kent Nixon, both 19, also are charged with killing the Sumners. Nixon pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, robbery and kidnapping after leading police to the bodies. By agreeing to testify against the rest, he avoided the death penalty and faces 52 years to life in prison.

Wade is scheduled for trial next week.

A telephone call to Cole's court-appointed defense attorney, Quentin Till, after hours Friday was not immediately returned.
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What democracy looks like

OTHER VIEWS NEW VOICES A FORUM FOR READERS UNDER 30

Mario M. Henderson

Special to the Sentinel

October 20, 2007

Abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said, "Those who profess to favor freedom , and yet depreciate agitation . . . want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters."

Martin Lee Anderson was videotaped being hit, kicked and dragged by seven guards. They were also later shown covering his mouth and forcing him to inhale ammonia capsules as a nurse stood by, watching.

It was his first day -- and his last day -- in a Florida juvenile boot camp.

The not-guilty verdicts of the eight Bay County boot-camp employees charged with the aggravated manslaughter of 14-year-old Anderson are beyond comprehension.

That's why 300 of us marched on the Capitol in Tallahassee and blocked two major intersections in the city during rush hour in response. Among the marchers were students from Florida A&M and Florida State universities, as well as Tallahassee Community College, in conjunction with the Student Coalition for Justice.

Tallahassee students and many people throughout Florida and this country continue pressing forward -- even though the sentiment among many is that justice has escaped the Anderson family after a jury in 90 minutes found that there was no wrongdoing by the boot-camp employees.

I am reminded that great changes and events have often started with protest. Colonists used organized protests many times against Great Britain in America's early days. During the civil-rights movement, nonviolent protests were triggered by students and spread throughout the South. College students also helped to initiate protests against the war during the Vietnam era. Many students are just as vocal today about the war in Iraq.

I am encouraged and moved by the actions of my peers to let the people of Florida and this country know that an injustice has not been corrected -- that protests against the injustices done to Martin Lee Anderson are the truly democratic thing to do. Agitating for justice is the right thing to do.

We are echoing Douglass' words: We are appreciating the rain and its thunder and lightning. We are revering the ocean and the awful roar of its many waters.

We are confident in the fact that this is what democracy looks like.

Mario M. Henderson, 20, of Daytona Beach is a junior majoring in political science at Florida A&M University.
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Friday, October 19, 2007

Detectives seek clues in the case of murdered 8-week-old

Amy L. Edwards

Sentinel Staff Writer

5:08 PM EDT, October 19, 2007

Polk County detectives are asking the public for information that can help them determine who killed an 8-week-old Haines City boy.

Zachary Ernie Durham, who was born Aug. 1, was found unresponsive in his parent's Haines City home Sept. 28, a Polk County Sheriff's Office report said.

The Medical Examiner's office determined Zachary died of "shaken baby syndrome" and the case was ruled a homicide. Sheriff's Office Chief W.J. Martin said the infant suffered massive brain injuries.

The Sheriff's Office said detectives interviewed Zachary's relatives. Martin said detectives have narrowed the focus to one suspect, but would not say whom.

A cash reward for information that leads to an arrest in this case is being offered through Heartland Crime Stoppers. Tips can be reported anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-226-8477.

Information can also be reported to the Sheriff's Office at 863-533-0344 or 1-800-226-0344.
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Police officer accused of touching teen turns himself in


Amy L. Edwards

Sentinel Staff Writer

5:03 PM EDT, October 19, 2007

A Kissimmee police officer turned himself in to Seminole County authorities today to face a count of lewd and lascivious behavior.

Officer Leo Martinez, 31, who has been with the Kissimmee Police Department since 2000, has been suspended without pay.

According to a Seminole County Sheriff's Office report, a 15-year-old girl said Martinez inappropriately touched her in July while she was in bed.

Martinez is a patrol officer in Kissimmee's DUI unit, the police department reported.

"These allegations are disturbing," said Kissimmee Police Chief Fran Iwanski. "We will continue to assist Seminole County in their investigation as well as move forward with our internal investigation."
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Deputies: Teen planned to make homemade bomb

Katie Fretland

Sentinel Staff Writer

3:38 PM EDT, October 19, 2007

A 16-year-old boy planned to make a homemade bomb to set off at his Seminole County school using a Sharpie pen, gun powder, pellets and a fuse, deputies said today.

Michael Drnek, of Clermont, sent a text message to another student explaining his plan to attack the private school, Pace Brantley, said Sgt. John Herrell.

The Seminole County Sheriff's Office intercepted the message and notified Lake County investigators to search Drnek's home.

Detectives and members of Lake's Hazardous Device Team searched Drnek's residence with his parents' permission and discovered the bomb-making materials in a black safe in his bedroom floor, Cpl. Willis Carter said in an arrest affidavit.

His father picked him up from school and delivered him to a substation of the Lake County Sheriff's Office for booking. He was arrested on charges of possession of a destructive device with intent to do bodily harm and transported to juvenile detention.
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Jury finds father guilty of shaking child to death


Rene Stutzman

Sentinel Staff Writer

5:17 PM EDT, October 19, 2007

SANFORD

A jury today convicted a father of murder for shaking his 4-month-old baby to death.

Jurors deliberated four hours before finding Bryan Bratchell Sr., 30, guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.

He's to be sentenced Nov. 28.

He faces a maximum of life in prison.

His son, Bryan Jr., stopped breathing and lapsed into a coma Jan. 16, 2002, shortly after his mother left the boy alone with his father.

Three days later, the infant was taken off life support and pronounced dead.

Medical experts told jurors the baby had been shaken so severely, it caused swelling and bleeding in his brain – the fatal injuries - and ruptured blood vessels in his eyes.

Bratchell Sr. gave Casselberry police three versions of what happened the day the baby was stricken. In the last, he said he was trying to play Nintendo but the baby wouldn't stop crying, so he shook the child five or six times.
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Life term for man who murdered Curious George collaborator

By Missy Diaz

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

October 19, 2007

Rex Ditto got his wish Thursday. He will die of natural causes in a Florida prison rather than risk being strapped to a gurney and having a lethal cocktail of drugs pumped through his system until his heart stops beating.

Ditto, a 31-year-old from Mobile, Ala., with a long history of mental illness, pleaded guilty to the 2006 stabbing death of 76-year-old Alan Shalleck, a collaborator of the Curious George children's books.

Shalleck was beaten and stabbed more than 100 times and nearly had his genitals severed. The killing occurred during a sadomasochistic sexual tryst at Shalleck's Boynton Beach mobile home.

Ditto's lover and co-defendant, Vincent Puglisi, 56, is to go to trial sometime next year. He faces the death penalty if convicted as charged.

"Mr. Shalleck was brutalized," Ditto attorney Robert Gershman said after Thursday's court hearing. "It was a horrible, horrible crime scene ... with no reasonable explanation."

Earlier this year, Ditto wrote Circuit Judge Edward Garrison a letter confessing his part in the crime. He has given numerous, conflicting statements to police, the media and prosecutors, Assistant State Attorney Andy Slater said. Earlier this month, the judge declined to remove the death penalty as an option for Ditto, who sought to plead guilty to Shalleck's murder and robbery in exchange for a sentence of life without parole.

On Oct. 11, the state allowed Ditto to give another statement. This time, Slater said, Ditto's version of events jibed with the physical evidence.

An evening of three-way sex had been arranged among Ditto, Puglisi and Shalleck on Super Bowl Sunday 2006, according to police.

According to Slater, Shalleck paddled Ditto until Ditto grabbed the paddle and began beating Shalleck in the head. Puglisi, an Oakland Park restaurant worker, then tried smothering Shalleck while Ditto held his legs.

When that didn't work, Puglisi, according to Slater, retrieved some knives and began stabbing Shalleck until Ditto took the cutlery and attacked Shalleck. Ditto told prosecutors that he did so in an effort to expedite Shalleck's death.

Ditto and Puglisi wrapped the body in garbage bags and tried dragging it to their vehicle — with the goal of dumping it in the Everglades — but abandoned it outside Shalleck's home when they were unable to lift it, Slater said.

They later pawned some of Shalleck's possessions for $450. Puglisi, according to Slater, disposed of the paddle and knives in Fort Lauderdale's New River.

While in the Palm Beach County Jail, Ditto has tried to sever his own genitals, Gershman said. Ditto has battled mental health issues most of his life, including hearing voices, the attorney said. He wanted to plead guilty and avoid a trial to spare himself a death sentence and to spare his parents the gory details of his sex life and the crime.

"The circumstances left little to be argued for a sentence of non-death," Gershman said.

Puglisi declined a similar plea offer by the state and plans to go to trial, according to Assistant Public Defender Shari Vrod.

Missy Diaz can be reached at mdiaz@sun-sentinel.com or 561-228-5505.
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Left to die at the jaws of gators

19 October 2007

DEATH. A sentence that a Miami judge deemed fit for Harrel Braddy's heinous crime.

His despicable act?

Leaving 5-year-old Quatisha Maycock to die in a part of Florida's Everglades known as Alligator Alley, nine years ago.

Police found her body two days later, her left arm missing, her skull crushed by alligators.

The medical examiner testified that the girl was eaten alive.

Before leaving Quatisha to die, Braddy attacked her mother, MsShandelle Maycock. He stuffed her in a car trunk and left her unconscious in a remote sugarcane field.

Convicted in July of first-degree murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, attempted escape and other charges, jurors in August voted 11-1 for the death penalty.

And on Monday, Circuit Judge Leonard Glick wrote in his sentencing order: 'The defendant... caused this 5-year-old to die, alone in the wilderness, and to be mutilated by monsters of the swamp.

'Adults are supposed to protect children from monsters - they are not supposed to be the monsters themselves.'

Braddy showed no reaction to the decision.

His parents were in the courtroom to hear the sentence. Also in the courtroom, Quatisha's mother crumpled a tissue in her hands andcried.

In deciding between death and life in prison without parole, Judge Glick considered Braddy's reason for harming Quatisha - to keep her from identifying him as the person who tried to kill her mother.

'This plan, well thought out and well carried out, could have no justification, moral or legal, but could only be the product of a person who is so cold and so calculating, so devoid of humanity and only concerned with his own welfare,' said Mr Glick.

FLASHBACK

In a 1998 interview with the Miami Herald, Ms Maycock spoke of the abduction, abuse and choking.

It all started when Ms Maycock, then a 22-year-old secretary, met Braddy while he was attending church with his wife.

He made it clear he was interested in a romantic relationship, but MsMaycock said she always told him no.

'I always told him, 'I don't see you and me' she said.

'But all of a sudden, he started coming by, asking, 'Do you need anything done?'

'I said yes. He'd take me to the Laundromat, grocery store, pick Quatisha up from day care, things I needed done.

'I needed that help and support as a single parent,' she said.

Braddy, a bricklayer, appeared to be a nice person, she said.

But she had no idea of his violent history, which included convictions for robbery, kidnapping and trying to kill a corrections officer by choking him.

Then, one Friday night, Ms Maycock lied to Braddy that she was to have a male visitor because she wanted him to leave her home.

'He just jumped me,' she said. 'He was choking me. I was fighting him and I fell to the floor.'

Braddy kept choking Ms Maycock and stuffed her into a dark car trunk.

In the car, Quatisha was crying, 'Mummy, Mummy!'

MsMaycock tried to soothe her, saying, 'It's going to be okay.'

PLEADING FOR HER LIFE

Bruised from being choked unconscious, frantic about her crying daughter, MsMaycock pleaded for her life when Braddy opened the trunk lid.

'Why?' she cried to Braddy. 'Why are you doing this?' as he tightened his fingers around her neck again.

'I know you're not this type of person. You don't need to do this,' she pleaded.

'You used me,' snarled Braddy, angry that MsMaycock wouldn't go out with him.

Then, she passed out. When she gained consciousness out there in the field, MsMaycock stumbled out of the bushes and staggered along a road.

Ms Maycock said some 10 or 20 cars passed by before two men stopped to help her. She was barefoot, weak, dazed and bleeding.

Braddy, meanwhile, drove off to dump Quatisha in Alligator Alley.

Said Ms Maycock: 'I loved my daughter. I did and I still do. This hurts so much, to lose a child.'
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Death penalty for man who left girl to be eaten by alligators


16th October 2007, 7:45 WST

A Florida man who left a five-year-old girl to be eaten alive by alligators and tried to kill her mother was sentenced to death today.

Prosecutors said Harrel Franklin Braddy, 58, attacked Shandelle Maycock and daughter Quatisha after he was released early from prison in another case for good behaviour. He tossed Maycock in his car trunk in 1998, drove her to a remote sugarcane field and choked her to unconsciousness.

Braddy then drove the girl to a part of the Everglades known as Alligator Alley and dropped her in the water beside the road, prosecutors said. Authorities found the girl’s body two days later, her left arm missing and her skull crushed.

Maycock woke up bleeding and disoriented, and survived.

Braddy was convicted in July of first-degree murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, attempted escape and other charges.

“Due to his own horrific actions, Harrel Braddy has caused a lot of pain to a lot of people, including the people who loved him and cared for him,” prosecutor Abbe Rifkin said in an email.

MIAMI
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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Attorneys uncertain of precedent


*Capital defense lawyers' views vary about how Supreme Court ruling could influence lethal injection executions


Statewide attorneys who have defended death-row inmates are unsure how the U.S. Supreme Court's review of a Kentucky ruling will influence how lethal injections are administered in Florida.

"It's potentially significant," Sarasota County Public Defender Adam Tebrugge said. "Legally, it appears there will be a moratorium on executions in Florida and, maybe, the country, until this case is done."

There are 385 men on Florida's death row, including eight from Lee County, six from Sarasota County, and five from Charlotte County.

Florida used lethal injection for executions since 2000, but has imposed a de facto moratorium since December after it took 34 minutes for inmate Angel Diaz to die during the procedure.

Tebrugge has represented 12 capital defendants since 1980, including Joseph Smith, sentenced to death for the 2004 murder of 13-year-old Carlie Brucia.

He said the fact that lethal injection is on the docket "means there were at least four votes in the court interested in hearing the issue."

"It could grind capital punishment to a stop -- change the protocol or think of another way to do it," said Todd Doss, a Lake City attorney who has argued against lethal injection before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Doss secured a stay of Clarence Hill's 2006 execution when the Court ruled Hill could file an Eighth Amendment claim of "cruel and unusual punishment" against lethal injection.

In subsequent rulings, the claim was dismissed. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 on Sept. 20, 2006, to deny another stay. Hill was executed four days later.

Now, Doss represents Diaz's family.

"Depending how it is administered, you can end up with an excruciating death," he said.

Marty McClain, who has worked death-row appeals in Florida for 22 years as a state Capital Collateral Defense attorney, is uncertain what precedent, if any, the case could set.

"It's hard to anticipate because the case is so broad, virtually everything is included," McClain said. "It could impact Florida greatly, or not at all. At this point, the answer to the question is nobody knows."

Others doubt the ruling will prove significant.

"The cynical part of me thinks the Court is tired of all these cases coming from all circuits and directions and will say lethal injection is just fine and dandy," said Harry Brody, a Sarasota attorney who successfully challenged the constitutionality of the electric chair "not that long ago."

"I'm suspicious," said Dr. Brooke Butler, an assistant University of South Florida professor of psychology who has researched death penalty issues extensively. "I don't think they will do anything about it -- that would be admitting they were doing it wrong all along."

Punta Gorda attorney Paul Sullivan, who defended Stephen Smith during his trial in the murder of a Charlotte Correctional Institution guard, said the ruling could have wider implications.

"I think it will serve as a useful barometer of the humanity of this Court as it is now composed," he said.

Regardless what the Court rules, Brody said it won't be "that simple." After all, he added, "If they strike this down, what happens next?"

That would pose a conundrum, agreed Larry Byrd, a former chief prosecutor and Sarasota defense attorney.

"Whether you agree with the death penalty or not, the United States Supreme Court, since its inception, has held you cannot execute someone in an inhumane way," Byrd said. "We tried the electric chair and caught people's heads on fire. We tried lethal injection and it took 30 minutes for someone to die. Maybe the answer is gas -- oh, we tried that. The only thing left is the guillotine or public hanging. We're going backward."

"I think anytime we're going to talk about how to kill people, it's really splitting hairs," Butler said.

You can e-mail John Haughey at jhaughey@sun-herald.com.


By JOHN HAUGHEY

Staff Writer
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Court review slows number of executions


By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court's decision to review the constitutionality of lethal injection procedures has slowed the annual number of executions to the lowest level in a decade amid renewed concerns about whether the method of death is too cruel.
The Georgia Supreme Court on Thursday stopped the execution of Jack Alderman, which had been scheduled for Friday. The state justices cited the high court's review.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked Virginia's plans to kill Christopher Scott Emmett, 36, hours before he was to die by lethal injection. Courts in Nevada and Texas this week postponed executions scheduled before year's end, making 2007 one of the quietest so far for executions since the mid-1990s.

"Some courts are being prudent by waiting to see how the Supreme Court will go," said Lisa McCalmont, a consultant to the death penalty clinic at the University of California at Berkeley law school.

Fewer than 50 executions will take place this year, even if several states pushing ahead with lethal injections defeat legal efforts to stop them. The last time executions numbered fewer than 50 was in 1996, when there were 45.

Since executions resumed in this country in 1977 after a Supreme Court-ordered halt, 1,099 inmates have died in state and federal execution chambers. The highest annual total was 98 in 1999, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.

In 2007, 42 people have been executed.

Texas, where 26 prisoners have been put to death this year, plans no more executions in 2007 after federal and state judges stopped four death sentences from being carried out.

Executions also have been delayed in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas and Oklahoma since the high court announced Sept. 25 it would hear a challenge to Kentucky's lethal injection method. Courts in California, Delaware, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee previously cited problems with lethal injections procedures in stopping executions.

The last person executed in this country was Michael Richard, 49, who died by lethal injection in Texas the same day the Supreme Court agreed to consider the constitutionality of lethal injection procedures in Kentucky. A Texas state judge refused that day to accept an appeal from Richard's lawyers, saying it had arrived after office hours.

Kentucky's method of lethal injection executions is similar to procedures in three dozen states. The court will consider whether the mix of three drugs used to sedate and kill prisoners has the potential to cause pain severe enough to violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

"The U.S. is clearly in what amounts to a de facto death penalty moratorium," said David Dow, a lawyer who runs the Texas Innocence Network out of the University of Houston Law Center and represents death row inmates.

Josh Marquis, the district attorney in Clatsop County, Ore., and a death penalty supporter, said executions should continue even while the Supreme Court looks at lethal injection.

The reprieves for the dozen or so men whose dates to die had been set are likely to be only temporary. Even the lawyers for the Kentucky inmates acknowledged there are alternative drugs and procedures available that lessen the risk of pain.

Justice Antonin Scalia also has suggested that people are reading too much into the court's decision to take up the Kentucky case. Scalia said Tuesday night he would have allowed Arkansas to proceed with the execution of Jack Jones.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had earlier put off Jones' execution because of the high court review. That decision "was based on the mistaken premise" that the high court wants state and federal judges to intervene every time a defendant raises a court challenge to lethal injection, Scalia said in a statement accompanying the Supreme Court's order that kept the appeals court ruling in place.

State officials in Florida and Mississippi are continuing with plans to carry out death sentences despite the high court's review. In both states, high courts are considering pleas for a delay from condemned inmates.

Lawyers for Mississippi are arguing that there is no reason to wait for the Supreme Court's lethal injection ruling. Earl Wesley Berry has an Oct. 30 execution date for a 1987 killing.

In Florida, Mark Dean Schwab, 38, is scheduled to die Nov. 15 for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old. Executions had been suspended since December after it took twice as long as usual - 34 minutes - for a convicted killer to die. Gov. Gov. Charlie Crist ended the freeze in July by signing Schwab's death warrant.
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State to seek death penalty in Bonita Springs murder case

Richard C. Elkins
Daily News staff

Originally published — 11:53 a.m., October 18, 2007
Updated — 1:53 p.m., October 18, 2007

Prosecutors will push for the death penalty against Richard Elkins, the 18-year-old accused of killing a Bonita Springs man earlier this year behind a pool hall, the state attorney's office said.

The state filed paperwork earlier this month announcing its plans to ask for the death penalty if Elkins is convicted. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and sexual battery with a deadly weapon, and is scheduled to go to trial in December.

Elkins is accused of beating to death Obed Flores, a 22-year-old Honduran man, after a night of drinking in February at Warehouse Billiards on Bonita Beach Road.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

What's Wrong With Florida's Prisons?


By Tim Padgett/Miami

An uneasy sense of dèjá vu swept over Florida last week after an all-white jury acquitted seven juvenile boot camp guards and a nurse charged with aggravated manslaughter in the death of a black teen last year.

The shocking verdict came down despite a half hour of videotape that showed the guards hitting and kicking the 14-year-old, Martin Lee Anderson, and holding their hands over his mouth for as long as five minutes at a time, while the nurse stood by and watched. The jury seemed persuaded by the first and widely discredited autopsy report that blamed the boy's death on a sickle-cell condition, even though a second autopsy ordered by the state had ruled Anderson died from suffocation (the Justice Department has since announced it will investigate whether federal civil rights violations charges should be brought in the case). "It's wrong!" Anderson's mother, Gina Jones, shouted as she stormed out of the Panama City courtroom after the verdict was read. The Anderson decision was reminiscent of another bewildering verdict five years ago, when three Florida state prison guards charged with stomping 36-year-old inmate Frank Valdes to death in his cell in 1999 were acquitted — even though the guards' boot prints were found all over his back.

Both verdicts were vivid reminders of what critics call the rot of Florida's corrections culture. Despite its Sunshine State image, Florida's prisons and juvenile detention centers are often associated with the more troubled corrections systems of its Deep South neighbors. While no one is asking Florida to coddle its prisoners, adult or juvenile, many fear it has yet to break its dark habit of coddling abusive guards and other officials watching over those prisoners.

The state is facing lawsuits alleging that its prisons subject too many inmates, including the mentally ill, to a prisoner "warehousing" culture of unlawfully extreme isolation and deprivation, usually with little or no rehabilitation efforts to prevent recidivism. Other suits decry what one calls excessive as well as "malicious and sadistic" use of pepper spray and other chemicals to keep mentally ill prisoners under control. In many cases the sprays have burned off inmates' skin, according to the suit. "Florida prisons still need to end this kind of outrageous conduct," says Randall Berg, executive director of the Florida Justice Institute in Miami, which is participating in a suit filed against the state's current Corrections head, James McDonough, along with other department officials.

Neither McDonough nor other Florida corrections officials will discuss the suits, since they're still pending. But the state in the past has insisted that pepper spray is one of the more benign means of controlling violent and mentally ill prisoners — and Florida is hardly the only state that uses such chemical agents to handle unruly inmates. But beyond the pepper spray issue, groups like Berg's acknowledge that McDonough, an MIT grad and former Army colonel, has begun long-overdue reforms to tackle corruption and other abuses. "We're changing the culture of the Department," McDonough insists. "There had been an attitude that [the prison system] was a culture apart from the rest of the state government. Not anymore."

That attitude led to quite a few excesses. Ten years ago, when a malfunctioning electric chair caused a prisoner's leather mask to burst into flames during his execution, Florida's Democratic Attorney General Robert Butterworth joked that the problems with "Old Sparky" — the chair's nickname — were actually a good deterrent to murder. Things didn't improve much after then Governor Jeb Bush and the Republicans took power in Tallahassee in 1999, especially at the Department of Juvenile Justice. In June of 2003, Omar Paisley, 17, an inmate at a juvenile detention center in Miami that was filled 135% beyond capacity, died when nurses ignored his pleas for help after his appendix burst. The nurses were later charged with manslaughter and third-degree murder, to which they have pleaded not guilty, and their trials are pending. Prosecutors at the trial of Valdes — who was awaiting execution for murdering a Palm Beach County corrections officer in 1987 — contended that one of the reasons he was beaten was the letters he'd begun writing to the media about abuses at Florida State Prison under its then warden, James Crosby. That made it all the more surprising when Bush appointed Crosby secretary of the state's Corrections Department in 2003. Then last year Crosby was convicted after a sweeping federal probe of corruption inside the state's prisons — and he's now serving eight years in prison himself.

As Crosby's successor, McDonough surely knows he has to work overtime to regain credibility for his department. With that in mind, he has made prisoner rehabilitation more of a priority, channeling renewed effort and funding toward prison education, substance abuse counseling, vocational training and daily life-management skills. "I think Florida is actually out in front now compared to a lot of state prison systems," says McDonough, who believes his rehab emphasis will cut the state's recidivism rate by more than 10 percentage points by the start of the next decade.

That would be welcome in a state whose 92,000 inmates amount to the nation's third largest prison population. Over the past two decades, Florida has in many ways led a national get-tough-on-crime wave that has reduced some crime rates but has also given the U.S. the world's highest incarceration rate. Bush had championed the often rough boot camps for juvenile delinquents; but after Anderson's death, Florida's conservative legislature voted to abolish them. And it's beginning to listen to McDonough's argument that lowering recidivism will save the state the hundreds of millions of dollars it's spending these days on new prisons.
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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Teen accused of beating brother to death won't be charged as an adult

Sarah Lundy

Sentinel Staff Writer

2:29 PM EDT, October 16, 2007

Prosecutors are not going to charge the 13-year-old - who is accused of beating his little brother to death - as an adult.

The case against Demetrius Key will remain in juvenile court, the State Attorney's Office announced today.

Investigators say the teenager fatally beat his 8-year-old brother, Levares Key, on Sept. 29 after the boy ate a dessert he wasn't supposed to and picked at a scab until it bled. Demetrius told detectives he feared he would get in trouble for his little brother's actions.

The teenager was arrested and charged with premeditated murder on Oct. 2.

Prosecutors have not filed formal charges yet - so it's unclear if the charge will remain the same or be downgraded to a lesser offense. The decision will be made later this month. They opted not to charge Demetrius as an adult based on his "lack of record" and the fact that he was a victim of physical abuse himself, according to the State Attorney's Office.

The boys' mother, Tangela Key, was arrested and charged with aggravated child neglect. Authorities say she left Levares in the care of the older boy - even after she knew Demetrius had hit Levares in the past.
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Jailed Orange teen admits she killed girl


Maya Derkovic weeps during an interview at Orange County Jail. Derkovic and two others have been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Harriet "Jackie" Curtis, 15. (Hilda M. Perez, Orlando Sentinel / October 15, 2007)


Henry Pierson Curtis and Sarah Lundy

Sentinel Staff Writers

October 16, 2007

The face of Jackie "Angel" Curtis haunted Maya Derkovic for the past nine months.

Finally, the 18-year-old gang member and Orange County Jail inmate couldn't keep her secret anymore.

In an effort to find peace, she told a jailer and later detectives how she choked 15-year-old Angel while two fellow gang members held the victim's arms.

Derkovic's story helped unravel a mystery that began Jan. 18 when Angel's badly decomposed body was found along the edge of a retention pond near Goldenrod Road.

"What I did was terribly wrong," Derkovic told the Orlando Sentinel in an exclusive interview from jail Monday night. "It's time to 'fess up to what I did and do the right thing."

The Sheriff's Office has charged Amiri "Sin" Lundy, 20; Dominique "D" Tolbert, 19; and Derkovic with killing Angel in an act of crude gang justice.

Lundy headed the 3rd World Rolling Sixties -- a spinoff of the West Coast Crips, according to court records and interviews Monday. Known as "O.G.," or the "Original Gangsta, " he also was an ex-boyfriend of the girl whom he, Derkovic and Tolbert are accused of killing.

All three lured Angel to a retention pond near Goldenrod Road intending to kill her, said sheriff's homicide Detective Brian Cross.

"She was set up," Cross said Monday. "She knew these people and trusted them."

Shortly after New Year's Day, Derkovic told the Sentinel, Lundy grew paranoid that Angel was trying to set up him and his family to be attacked by the rival gang she belonged to. He accused her of stealing Lundy's special book that held secrets and rules of the Rolling Sixties.

That's when the idea of killing Angel came up, said Derkovic, who was the highest-ranking female in the gang and a friend of the victim.

"He made her seem to be like a spy."

A few nights later -- Derkovic said she thinks it was Jan. 9 -- she and Tolbert were walking to her job at a bakery on Goldenrod Road. Lundy joined the two, telling them he had called Angel to meet them at a Hess gas station nearby.

When Angel showed up, the four walked toward the bakery. One of the men, Derkovic said, handed her a knife he had wrapped in a bandanna.

"He said, 'You know what that's for?' and I said, 'I know what you are talking about.' "

They hung out in the neighborhood behind the bakery, ending up at the overgrown pond at the end of Alachua Street.

Angel borrowed Lundy's phone to call for a ride home. After she handed the phone back, "I grabbed her," Derkovic said.

Derkovic pulled out the knife, and the women struggled. Angel grabbed the weapon, and it broke. At one point, Angel grabbed Derkovic's bandanna with her bloody hand.

Then the two men grabbed the victim's arms, she said.

"That's when I got on top of her," Derkovic said. Derkovic said she grabbed Angel's throat and pushed. Then she eased the pressure and pushed again.

"Before I knew it, she stopped struggling," Derkovic said.

After she let go, Derkovic said, one of the men stepped on the victim's neck.

"I can only ask Angel to forgive me for what I did to her," Derkovic told the Sentinel.

Details of the case were still being investigated Monday, but the Sheriff's Office learned in the past week that Angel, who attended Winter Park High School's Ninth Grade Center, agonized over her life as a gangster girl.

"I went through her diary, and she really wanted to change her life around. It really impressed me," Cross said. "This was a girl who truly loved her mother, and her mother truly loved her. . . . This is just a tragic and senseless loss."

Her body was discovered partly in the water Jan. 18. It had been there for about two days, and decomposition covered up all signs of obvious trauma, according to the Sheriff's Office.

The Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner's Office ruled the cause of death as undetermined, but Cross never set aside the investigation, according to homicide Sgt. Allen Lee.

Then someone made an anonymous phone call about a week ago to Crimeline.

The tipster said two people involved in the death had been picked up within weeks of the killing in connection with an armed carjacking near Chickasaw Trail. Those two, awaiting sentencing in jail, were Derkovic and Tolbert.

Derkovic identified herself as a full member of the 3rd World Rolling Sixties gang within minutes of her Jan. 28 arrest for armed carjacking, county court records show. She was driving the carjacked victim's 2006 black Toyota when deputies spotted it on Valencia College Lane and she and Tolbert jumped out to try to run away, records show.

Both wore beads in the gang's black-and-blue colors. Tolbert, originally from Pensacola, also wore a black-and-blue bandanna and carried an imitation 9 mm pistol Derkovic is charged with using to take the car at gunpoint, records show.

"Maya is a pretty established member of this group and has been for long time," Cross said of the lanky, 6-feet-2 teenager with a "Daddy P" tattoo on her neck, a souvenir of her time as a prostitute in Miami.

Derkovic first joined a street gang several years ago when her family lived in South Florida. Born in Bosnia, she went by the nickname "Luda," which means "Crazy" in her native language, according to Cross, who interviewed her in the jail Monday afternoon.

Tolbert pleaded guilty to the carjacking and, in August, wrote the judge an elaborately illustrated letter asking for leniency. His drawing featured a gavel labeled, "Time Served" and a set of open handcuffs.

If convicted of the new charge of first-degree murder, Tolbert, Derkovic and Lundy face life in prison and, possibly, the death penalty.

Lundy was picked up late Friday, jail records show. It was only the second time he had been arrested, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

The prior arrest involved armed drug dealing at Olympia High School after a school resource officer charged Lundy, then 16, with possession of marijuana, a .22-caliber pistol and eight bullets on Sept. 12, 2005, records show. The arrest followed a tip from another student's mother who accused Lundy of firing two shots at her son days earlier during a fight in Orlo Vista, records show.

Prosecutors later dropped both charges, records show.

Derkovic's mother, who did not want to be named to protect her younger children's identity, has visited the jail regularly since January. She knew something bothered her daughter besides the carjacking charge but the teen would not say why.

"For the past four to five months, she always broke down and cried and said, 'There's something else I need to tell you, but I can't," her mother said Monday evening. "In one way she feels so much better now. She can sleep."

After years of trying to control her daughter's misbehavior, she said her daughter must accept responsibility for her actions, whatever they were and whatever punishment faces her.

"Taking somebody's life is something I cannot imagine any child of mine doing. I can't imagine what that other girl's mother is feeling," she said. "For my child it is too late. If she did it, she's going to have to deal with herself. Someone else may learn from what happens to her."
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Verdict stands after botched analysis, judge says


Rene Stutzman

Sentinel Staff Writer

October 16, 2007

SANFORD

A judge ruled Monday that death-row inmate Clemente Javier "Shorty" Aguirre does not deserve a new trial, even though a fingerprint expert botched her analysis and falsely told jurors his print was on the murder weapon.

Circuit Judge O.H. Eaton Jr concluded that the jury would have convicted Aguirre and recommended the death penalty even if it had never heard the fingerprint evidence.

Aguirre, 27, was convicted by a Seminole County jury last year of murdering two neighbors -- a wheelchair-bound woman and her adult daughter.

Carol Bareis, 68, and her daughter, Cheryl A. Williams, 47, were found slain in their home near Altamonte Springs in June 2004.

At the trial, Seminole County fingerprint expert Donna Birks told jurors that a palm print found on the murder weapon, a chef's knife discovered in Aguirre's yard, belonged to Aguirre.

But that turned out to be false. Authorities reviewed more than 300 Sheriff's Office fingerprint cases after a co-worker in March complained about Birks. They found 10 bad calls by Sheriff's Office print experts, eight of those by Birks.

She resigned in June a few hours after being told she was about to be fired.

That was the same day Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger announced a major shakeup in the fingerprint lab.

Four of his fingerprint experts either made bad identifications or verified bad calls by a colleague.

The Aguirre case was the highest-profile misidentification.

Three weeks ago, Aguirre returned to the Seminole Criminal Justice Center to ask Eaton for a new trial.

Christina Barber, a print expert with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, testified that she looked at the knife from Aguirre's yard in May, several months after he had been sent to death row.

The print on it, she said, had so little detail, it couldn't be tied to anyone. Seven other FDLE print experts looked at it about the same time, she said, and each agreed with her.

On Monday, the judge released a 13-page order saying none of that mattered. The state's DNA and blood evidence linked only one credible suspect to the scene -- Aguirre -- the judge wrote.

He also pointed out that Aguirre testified that he had touched the knife. He told jurors he went into the victims' home after they already were dead, saw the knife, picked it up and carried it outside, the judge wrote.



Rene Stutzman can be reached at rstutzman@orlandosentinel.com or 407-324-7294.
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Listen to the executioners before you opt for executions


Jeff Sparrow

A FEW weeks ago, I talked to a man called Ron McAndrew. He spoke about the death penalty, but from quite a different perspective than either Kevin Rudd or John Howard.

You see, McAndrew had served as the warden of Florida State Prison. He'd actually executed people - and it had changed his life forever.

In a slow, sad voice, McAndrew described what it was like sending a man to the electric chair.

"When we turned on the electricity to kill this guy," he said, "flames shot out from under the helmet. We burned his head - badly. There was steam going down the side of his face, coming out of his eyes and his nose burned as well. It was horrifying. The chamber filled up with smoke. We could hardly see each other . . . but you could still smell the burning flesh."

The man McAndrew killed that day was called Pedro Medina. A court had found Medina guilty of what McAndrew described as "a vicious crime" - he'd stabbed a teacher to death. Medina might not have been a Bali bomber, but he was by no means a nice man.

Of course, few of the people on death row are. By and large, the people McAndrew dealt with were the wretched of the earth: men who were, at best, pathetic; at worst, genuinely terrifying.

Which is why Rudd's stance on capital punishment makes no sense.

If you don't speak out against the execution of unpleasant people, you'll almost never speak out on capital punishment at all. If terrorists don't deserve mercy, what about, say, a Ted Bundy, a man who tortured and murdered about 30 people for no reason other than his own gratification? What about a Gary Gilmore, a multiple killer who actually campaigned to be put to death?

Yet it was through such cases - the execution of men guilty of grotesque crimes - that capital punishment returned to the US.

But, in the current debate, McAndrew's experience with Medina matters for another reason.

It's too easy to discuss the death penalty on a plane of lofty abstraction, far removed from the messy business of actually killing a man. The history of capital punishment in the modern era involves a search for a method of execution compatible with contemporary notions of justice - something clean, sterile and dignified. But the closer you look, the more impossible that seems.

The elaborate tortures of the Middle Ages gave way to the simple British gallows. The noose often meant slow strangulation or involuntary decapitation, and Americans turned to the electric chair, which was supposed to make turning off a life as simple as turning on a switch.

Except, as McAndrew discovered, it doesn't.

Today, most American states use lethal injection: a method that, as Ronald Reagan explained, was just like putting an animal to sleep.

McAndrew had also conducted executions by lethal injections - and he'd found it no less grotesque.

For a start, he explained, many prisoners were drug abusers, so that getting a needle into their ruined veins was very difficult.

"They don't have any veins," he said. "Their veins are flat. So in order to get an IV you've got to do what's called a cut-down, cutting through their arms to get a vein. And you've got to get two IVs in - one in each arm.

"This last guy they executed up there, it took them 34 minutes. And, you know, he could still move his head on the table. He's looking all around and he's asking them - and I've spoken to some of the guys involved in this - he's asking them, 'What the hell is going on? Give me a shot - do something to stop the pain'."

Even when the process went smoothly, it was still traumatic for the prison staff.

"You know," he said, "when the person has been executed and you tell the witnesses that they've been pronounced dead, you close the curtain. They don't see anything else. But you've got to stay there. You've got the body. You've got to take the apparatus off them. You've got to pull the needles out of their arm. You've got to stuff the body into a body bag."

He didn't know anyone who'd been involved in the death penalty who didn't later regret it.

Should it matter to Rudd what the death penalty does to executioners?

Let's put it like this: if the execution of even the wickedest man still traumatises the people who carry it out, what about the society that condones it?

Jeff Sparrow is the editor of Overland.
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Monday, October 15, 2007

Death sentence for leaving 5-year-old to be eaten by gators

By KELLI KENNEDY

Associated Press

2:29 PM EDT, October 15, 2007

MIAMI

A judge sentenced a man to death Monday, nearly nine years after he left a 5-year-old girl to be eaten alive by alligators in the Everglades and tried to kill her mother.

Harrel Franklin Braddy, 58, attacked Shandelle Maycock and daughter Quatisha after he was released early from prison for good behavior in another case. He was convicted in July of first-degree murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, attempted escape and other charges.

Judge Leonard E. Glick also sentenced Braddy to three consecutive life terms on the kidnapping and burglary with an assault charges. He also got 30 years in prison on the attempted murder of Shandelle, 15 years on child neglect causing great bodily harm and five years on attempted escape.

Prosecutors said Braddy tossed Maycock in the trunk of his car in 1998 and drove her to a remote sugarcane field, choked her to unconsciousness and left her to die. She never saw her child again.

Braddy drove the girl to a section of Interstate 75 in the Everglades known as Alligator Alley and dropped her in the water beside the road, prosecutors said. She was alive when alligators bit her on the head and stomach, a medical examiner said.

Authorities found the girl's body two days later, her left arm missing and her skull crushed, prosecutors said. Maycock woke up bleeding and disoriented, but managed to flag down help.

Braddy's attorney, G.P. Della Fera, said Braddy knew Maycock from his involvement in church outreach programs.

``I'm saddened for both families,'' Della Fera said.

The case took so long because Braddy repeatedly fired his lawyers and represented himself in court sometimes.

Maycock sobbed during the initial sentencing as she told jurors how her life without her only child would never be the same. The little girl she nicknamed Candy had just started kindergarten and loved writing her name and singing along with the church choir.

Prosecutor Abbe Rifkin said Braddy got the appropriate sentence.

``Due to his own horrific actions, Harrel Braddy has caused a lot of pain to a lot of people, including the people who loved him and cared for him,'' Rifkin said in an e-mail. ``The State is grateful that Quatisha's small voice was finally heard, and that the defendant received the sentence he so rightfully earned.''

Braddy had been out of prison for a little over a year before the 1998 kidnapping. He was released early after serving 13 years of a 30-year sentence for several charges including attempted murder.

He wore an electric shock device and knee brace, making it difficult for him to bend his knee during the sentencing. The courtroom was filled with extra police officers, all measures taken after Braddy escaped from the courthouse in 1984 when he choked a Miami-Dade County corrections officer.

During two other escapes that year, Braddy kidnapped and robbed an assistant pastor and an elderly couple. At one point Braddy was on the run for more than a month before authorities found him in Georgia.

After he was arrested for kidnapping the Maycocks, he tried to escape from the interrogation room by bending an air conditioning grate.
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