Debt paid in husband killing
By Molly Moorhead, Times Staff Writer
Published Saturday, January 9, 2010
One night 28 years ago, Jacqueline Stangherlin lured her husband to a furniture shop where a hit man waited with a tire iron. Roman Stangherlin took several blows to the head and began crying "Oh my God, Oh my God."
The hit man, a 21-year-old cook at a seafood restaurant, lost his nerve. So Jackie took over, clubbing her husband with a radio, then strangling him with the cord.
When the job was done, she exclaimed, "The bastard is dead."
She went to trial, was convicted and sentenced to a 300-year prison term in one of the most notorious and intriguing crimes in Hernando and Pasco County history.
But in November, after serving 26 of those 300 years, Jacqueline Stangherlin walked free.
According to the Florida Parole Commission, her sentence was commuted to 75 years in 2006 and she became eligible for parole.
Now 76, she lives with her son in a tidy house facing a retention pond in Port Richey. She did not respond to a request for an interview.
• • •
Born in northern Italy, Roman Stangherlin entered the Catholic priesthood in 1962. Ten years later, he set aside his religious calling and married Jacqueline Frank, a mother of seven children.
They ran Gulf Coast Realty and Gulf View Travel in New Port Richey. Trouble surfaced when Mrs. Stangherlin suspected her husband of having an affair with a younger woman. When he asked her for a divorce in March of 1982, he told his attorney, she twice threatened him with a gun.
He sought a restraining order from the courts, and a day later, he went missing.
Jacqueline Stangherlin was arrested before her husband's body was found stuffed into a sleeping bag in a shallow grave on private property in Shady Hills. Authorities said she had enlisted the help of several conspirators, and one of them talked.
Anthony Colandro, who had lived near the Stangherlins in New Port Richey, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder soon after the killing and got a 15-year-prison sentence.
In exchange, he told this story: Jacqueline had paid him $4,000 to kill her husband. They waited for him at the Sleep n' Sit Shoppe on U.S. 19 near Weeki Wachee; she hid in a closet. When Roman arrived, Colandro attacked him with the tire iron but he got spooked by the blood and the 42-year-old man's terrified pleas. Colandro said Jacqueline finished him off.
William Powlowski, then 39, owned the Sleep n' Sit Shoppe. He was arrested alongside Mrs. Stangherlin, having received $6,500 from her for his help arranging the murder and burying the body.
Authorities searched for weeks for Roman's body. Almost two months after the murder, a school janitor came forward. Stanley Modzelewski said he had taken $500 from Mrs. Stangherlin and a promise that she would buy his Shady Hills land in exchange for disposing of the body. Modzelewski was granted immunity from prosecution after leading detectives to the grave.
Another witness, a man whom Mrs. Stangherlin hired to be her bodyguard, told authorities she confessed the murder to him, bit by bit, over several weeks.
Richard Zartman, in a 1982 deposition, offered this: "She said, 'Men are weak without women. They are worms. The bastard deserved to die.' She said she grabbed a … cord and finished him off."
• • •
The trial took place over four weeks in January and February of 1983. It was moved to Tavares, in Lake County, because of heavy publicity. The state was seeking the death penalty against both Mrs. Stangherlin and Powlowski.
But the jury found them guilty not of first-degree, premeditated murder but of the lesser crimes of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder.
Powlowski was given a life sentence and paroled in 1994. He is 67 now and lives in Ocala, records show.
Three state parole commissioners voted unanimously last October to parole Jacqueline Stangherlin. They did not publicly say what factors went into her release, but those typically include a demonstration of productivity and involvement in prison and no disciplinary problems. An inmate's age can be considered too. Mrs. Stangherlin will be under community supervision until 2019.
Among the jobs she held during her nearly three decades in prison, Mrs. Stangherlin was a housekeeper, education aide and chapel worker, according to the Department of Corrections.
A Web site for the Full Gospel Evangelistic Association names, in its list of Florida members, a Chaplain Jacqueline Stangherlin.
Molly Moorhead can be reached at moorhead@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6245.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Where John Walsh's work ends
By POST EDITORIAL BOARD AND THE PALM BEACH POST
Updated: 7:59 p.m. Friday, Jan. 8, 2010
Posted: 7:57 p.m. Friday, Jan. 8, 2010
John Walsh helped to find Paul Michael Merhige, for which the community should be grateful. But Mr. Walsh's contribution to the law-enforcement side of the case should have ended there.
On Tuesday, the host of America's Most Wanted joined Jim Sitton at a news conference. Mr. Sitton is the father of 6-year-old Makayla Sitton. Her mother, Muriel Sitton, is Merhige's cousin. Makayla was one of Merhige's four victims, shot after Thanksgiving dinner. All of the victims were family members.
At the news conference, Mr. Sitton asked Palm Beach County State Attorney Michael McAuliffe to seek the death penalty. "If there's anyone who deserves the death penalty," Mr. Sitton said, "it is someone who would execute my 6-year-old daughter while she is in bed." Mr. Walsh agreed, saying, "I hope (McAuliffe) does the right thing and ends this family's pain."
In fact, the right thing for Mr. Walsh would have been to say nothing. We understand his need to promote the show and the bond that can develop between him and grieving families. We understand how Mr. Walsh has channeled his own anger and grief from the murder of his son, Adam — who also was 6 — 29 years ago into productive work.
But his comment was wrong for two reasons.
First, "the right thing" in the Merhige case depends on your perspective, and the prosecutor's decision depends on many variables. Even when defendants are convicted of capital crimes, juries and judges must weigh 11 exacerbating and seven mitigating factors before a sentence of death is ordered. Second, we wonder whether a decision to seek the death penalty really would ease the Sittons' pain.
On the America's Most Wanted Web site, Mr. Walsh says that the show has caught 1,100 fugitives. He has his job. Prosecutors have theirs.
Updated: 7:59 p.m. Friday, Jan. 8, 2010
Posted: 7:57 p.m. Friday, Jan. 8, 2010
John Walsh helped to find Paul Michael Merhige, for which the community should be grateful. But Mr. Walsh's contribution to the law-enforcement side of the case should have ended there.
On Tuesday, the host of America's Most Wanted joined Jim Sitton at a news conference. Mr. Sitton is the father of 6-year-old Makayla Sitton. Her mother, Muriel Sitton, is Merhige's cousin. Makayla was one of Merhige's four victims, shot after Thanksgiving dinner. All of the victims were family members.
At the news conference, Mr. Sitton asked Palm Beach County State Attorney Michael McAuliffe to seek the death penalty. "If there's anyone who deserves the death penalty," Mr. Sitton said, "it is someone who would execute my 6-year-old daughter while she is in bed." Mr. Walsh agreed, saying, "I hope (McAuliffe) does the right thing and ends this family's pain."
In fact, the right thing for Mr. Walsh would have been to say nothing. We understand his need to promote the show and the bond that can develop between him and grieving families. We understand how Mr. Walsh has channeled his own anger and grief from the murder of his son, Adam — who also was 6 — 29 years ago into productive work.
But his comment was wrong for two reasons.
First, "the right thing" in the Merhige case depends on your perspective, and the prosecutor's decision depends on many variables. Even when defendants are convicted of capital crimes, juries and judges must weigh 11 exacerbating and seven mitigating factors before a sentence of death is ordered. Second, we wonder whether a decision to seek the death penalty really would ease the Sittons' pain.
On the America's Most Wanted Web site, Mr. Walsh says that the show has caught 1,100 fugitives. He has his job. Prosecutors have theirs.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Death-sentence appeal denied for Mark Twilegar
By Bill Cotterell
Florida Capital Bureau
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court denied a death-sentence appeal Thursday in the case of a Fort Myers man who refused to let lawyers show mitigating facts that might have kept him off of Death Row.
After being found guilty of murder, the court said, Mark Twilegar waived a jury in the penalty phase of his trial. The ruling said he stated, "I would rather do the death penalty and just get it over with." He filed an affidavit saying presentation of mitigating factors would violate his right to privacy, amount to an admission of guilt and violate his religious rights.
Twilegar was convicted of fatally shooting David Thomas in Fort Myers on Aug. 7, 2002.
On appeal, the high court also rejected claims that evidence was not sufficient to convict Twilegar or to show premeditation.
Capital cases in Florida are tried in separate guilt and penalty phases. Aggravating and mitigating circumstances are argued in the second part and juries recommend life or death penalties.
But the Supreme Court said Twilegar refused to meet with a psychiatrist or mitigation specialist and forbade his lawyers to interview family and friends about his background. The court cited evidence indicating he was intelligent, no history of mental illness and that his lawyers were ready with written arguments for a life sentence if he had allowed them to proceed.
"We conclude that Twilegar’s waiver of a penalty-phase jury, waiver of investigation into mitigation and waiver of the presentation of mitigation were knowing, intelligent and voluntary," said the unanimous court.
Florida Capital Bureau
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court denied a death-sentence appeal Thursday in the case of a Fort Myers man who refused to let lawyers show mitigating facts that might have kept him off of Death Row.
After being found guilty of murder, the court said, Mark Twilegar waived a jury in the penalty phase of his trial. The ruling said he stated, "I would rather do the death penalty and just get it over with." He filed an affidavit saying presentation of mitigating factors would violate his right to privacy, amount to an admission of guilt and violate his religious rights.
Twilegar was convicted of fatally shooting David Thomas in Fort Myers on Aug. 7, 2002.
On appeal, the high court also rejected claims that evidence was not sufficient to convict Twilegar or to show premeditation.
Capital cases in Florida are tried in separate guilt and penalty phases. Aggravating and mitigating circumstances are argued in the second part and juries recommend life or death penalties.
But the Supreme Court said Twilegar refused to meet with a psychiatrist or mitigation specialist and forbade his lawyers to interview family and friends about his background. The court cited evidence indicating he was intelligent, no history of mental illness and that his lawyers were ready with written arguments for a life sentence if he had allowed them to proceed.
"We conclude that Twilegar’s waiver of a penalty-phase jury, waiver of investigation into mitigation and waiver of the presentation of mitigation were knowing, intelligent and voluntary," said the unanimous court.
TN court could settle limbo concerning executed man's autopsy
Inmate Cecil Johnson's religious beliefs are pitted against state study
By Clay Carey
THE TENNESSEAN
Cecil Johnson Jr. did not want coroners examining his body after he was executed Dec. 2. Because of his religious beliefs, the death row inmate said he did not want an autopsy — just an immediate funeral and burial at a cemetery in Las Vegas.
Johnson's wishes have run headlong into the state medical examiner's practice of conducting autopsies on executed inmates, prompting a monthlong battle over the custody of his remains. Medical Examiner Bruce Levy is seeking a court order allowing an autopsy. Johnson's body is in storage until a final decision is made.
Today, the state Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments in the matter. At issue: the question over whether Johnson's religious beliefs outweigh the government's interest in knowing exactly how his execution went. Knowledge gleaned from post-execution autopsies can be important, particularly when lethal injections are used, death penalty experts say. But last wishes based on religion throw a serious kink in those plans, they say, making it hard to justify post-mortem examinations.
The Rev. James Thomas, Johnson's spiritual adviser, said Johnson "wanted all of his body to go back to God" after his death.
"It's important to respect that. I don't know why the state won't respect that — he's paid his debt," said Thomas, pastor of the Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville.
Thomas said Johnson was a nondenominational Christian and that his feeling on the autopsy was a personal one, not based on a specific church doctrine.
"Cecil was a very spiritual fellow," Thomas said. "I believe he developed that (belief) by reading his Bible in that prison."
The fact that Johnson's belief wasn't part of a specific spiritual creed won't lessen its importance in court, said Charles C. Haynes, senior scholar at the nonprofit First Amendment Center.
"If his family says, 'This is our deep religious belief,' under our First Amendment that should be taken seriously," Haynes said.
In court papers, Johnson said, "My strong personal religious convictions do not allow for my body to be desecrated in any such manner such as is rendered in an autopsy. …''
But Levy said, in court documents, that an autopsy "is the only way I can rule out any possibility that the state failed to protect the rights of (Johnson) during incarceration and establish that the execution was carried out in the manner prescribed by law."
Method has raised debate
The lethal injection protocol involves three shots — first a lethal dose of sedatives, then a muscle paralytic and finally the drug that stops the heart. The method has been controversial in Tennessee and elsewhere; opponents of capital punishment have argued that if they are administered improperly, the shots can leave the victim paralyzed but coherent and in pain.
Autopsies could reveal problems with the way the drugs are used and can provide states with a defense in the event of legal challenges, said Richard Dieter, director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. Still, he said, the wishes of inmates who oppose autopsies on religious grounds should be respected.
"I think ordinarily the state's control ends with the execution," Dieter said. "They don't have ownership of a body."
Christopher Slobogin, professor of law and director of the Criminal Justice Program at Vanderbilt University, said the practice of routinely conducting autopsies is not common. Most states either give the inmate's remains to families immediately after the execution, or don't address the issue at all in state law, Slobogin said.
A few states do have laws calling for autopsies. Pennsylvania state code expressly gives county coroners the discretion to conduct post-mortem examinations.
Florida requires autopsies on all inmates who die in the prison system's custody, including those who are executed, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said. Those requirements are spelled out specifically in state law.
"We haven't had any challenges" to that policy, Plessinger said. Since 2006, Florida has performed eight executions.
In Tennessee, state law gives medical examiners like Levy the authority to call for autopsies on people who die of unnatural causes, including those who are executed.
Over the past 10 years, the state has executed five other death row inmates. Levy has conducted autopsies on four of them, including one who had religious objections. Levy had to go to court before getting permission to study the remains of convicted cop killer Philip Workman in 2007, who also objected based on his religious beliefs.
Levy did not perform an autopsy on Sedley Alley after the family objected and took the matter to court, but Levy's office did draw fluids from the body.
Ongoing legal battle
Autopsies "can help the state and the public determine the effects of lethal injection — whether the individual was conscious when he died instead of anesthetized as he is supposed to be, whether he was in pain and so on," Slobogin said.
"But if the individual strongly objects to an autopsy, especially on religious grounds, there doesn't seem to be a particularly strong state interest in conducting the autopsy," the professor said.
Johnson's widow and spiritual adviser have said they do not question the way the execution was carried out and that the autopsy isn't needed.
The 53-year-old Johnson was sentenced to death for killing three people, including a 12-year-old boy, during a Nashville convenience store robbery in 1980. Hours before his execution, Johnson and his wife filed court motions claiming the autopsy would violate his constitutional rights.
Less than an hour before Johnson's death, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Echols issued a temporary restraining order blocking his autopsy. A week later, after both sides had argued the issue in court, Echols lifted that order and said the autopsy could proceed.
In his ruling, Echols wrote that the public "has a right to know whether the executions which are carried out on its behalf are done in a humane way."
A day after Echols ruled, Johnson's widow filed a second suit to stop the autopsy in state court. On Dec. 16, Davidson County Chancellor Russell T. Perkins blocked it, opining that the state hadn't shown that the state's need to conduct the autopsy trumped Johnson's religious beliefs.
Perkins said the autopsy "would impinge on the exercise of religious beliefs, genuinely held."
Levy appealed that decision to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
By Clay Carey
THE TENNESSEAN
Cecil Johnson Jr. did not want coroners examining his body after he was executed Dec. 2. Because of his religious beliefs, the death row inmate said he did not want an autopsy — just an immediate funeral and burial at a cemetery in Las Vegas.
Johnson's wishes have run headlong into the state medical examiner's practice of conducting autopsies on executed inmates, prompting a monthlong battle over the custody of his remains. Medical Examiner Bruce Levy is seeking a court order allowing an autopsy. Johnson's body is in storage until a final decision is made.
Today, the state Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments in the matter. At issue: the question over whether Johnson's religious beliefs outweigh the government's interest in knowing exactly how his execution went. Knowledge gleaned from post-execution autopsies can be important, particularly when lethal injections are used, death penalty experts say. But last wishes based on religion throw a serious kink in those plans, they say, making it hard to justify post-mortem examinations.
The Rev. James Thomas, Johnson's spiritual adviser, said Johnson "wanted all of his body to go back to God" after his death.
"It's important to respect that. I don't know why the state won't respect that — he's paid his debt," said Thomas, pastor of the Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville.
Thomas said Johnson was a nondenominational Christian and that his feeling on the autopsy was a personal one, not based on a specific church doctrine.
"Cecil was a very spiritual fellow," Thomas said. "I believe he developed that (belief) by reading his Bible in that prison."
The fact that Johnson's belief wasn't part of a specific spiritual creed won't lessen its importance in court, said Charles C. Haynes, senior scholar at the nonprofit First Amendment Center.
"If his family says, 'This is our deep religious belief,' under our First Amendment that should be taken seriously," Haynes said.
In court papers, Johnson said, "My strong personal religious convictions do not allow for my body to be desecrated in any such manner such as is rendered in an autopsy. …''
But Levy said, in court documents, that an autopsy "is the only way I can rule out any possibility that the state failed to protect the rights of (Johnson) during incarceration and establish that the execution was carried out in the manner prescribed by law."
Method has raised debate
The lethal injection protocol involves three shots — first a lethal dose of sedatives, then a muscle paralytic and finally the drug that stops the heart. The method has been controversial in Tennessee and elsewhere; opponents of capital punishment have argued that if they are administered improperly, the shots can leave the victim paralyzed but coherent and in pain.
Autopsies could reveal problems with the way the drugs are used and can provide states with a defense in the event of legal challenges, said Richard Dieter, director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. Still, he said, the wishes of inmates who oppose autopsies on religious grounds should be respected.
"I think ordinarily the state's control ends with the execution," Dieter said. "They don't have ownership of a body."
Christopher Slobogin, professor of law and director of the Criminal Justice Program at Vanderbilt University, said the practice of routinely conducting autopsies is not common. Most states either give the inmate's remains to families immediately after the execution, or don't address the issue at all in state law, Slobogin said.
A few states do have laws calling for autopsies. Pennsylvania state code expressly gives county coroners the discretion to conduct post-mortem examinations.
Florida requires autopsies on all inmates who die in the prison system's custody, including those who are executed, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said. Those requirements are spelled out specifically in state law.
"We haven't had any challenges" to that policy, Plessinger said. Since 2006, Florida has performed eight executions.
In Tennessee, state law gives medical examiners like Levy the authority to call for autopsies on people who die of unnatural causes, including those who are executed.
Over the past 10 years, the state has executed five other death row inmates. Levy has conducted autopsies on four of them, including one who had religious objections. Levy had to go to court before getting permission to study the remains of convicted cop killer Philip Workman in 2007, who also objected based on his religious beliefs.
Levy did not perform an autopsy on Sedley Alley after the family objected and took the matter to court, but Levy's office did draw fluids from the body.
Ongoing legal battle
Autopsies "can help the state and the public determine the effects of lethal injection — whether the individual was conscious when he died instead of anesthetized as he is supposed to be, whether he was in pain and so on," Slobogin said.
"But if the individual strongly objects to an autopsy, especially on religious grounds, there doesn't seem to be a particularly strong state interest in conducting the autopsy," the professor said.
Johnson's widow and spiritual adviser have said they do not question the way the execution was carried out and that the autopsy isn't needed.
The 53-year-old Johnson was sentenced to death for killing three people, including a 12-year-old boy, during a Nashville convenience store robbery in 1980. Hours before his execution, Johnson and his wife filed court motions claiming the autopsy would violate his constitutional rights.
Less than an hour before Johnson's death, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Echols issued a temporary restraining order blocking his autopsy. A week later, after both sides had argued the issue in court, Echols lifted that order and said the autopsy could proceed.
In his ruling, Echols wrote that the public "has a right to know whether the executions which are carried out on its behalf are done in a humane way."
A day after Echols ruled, Johnson's widow filed a second suit to stop the autopsy in state court. On Dec. 16, Davidson County Chancellor Russell T. Perkins blocked it, opining that the state hadn't shown that the state's need to conduct the autopsy trumped Johnson's religious beliefs.
Perkins said the autopsy "would impinge on the exercise of religious beliefs, genuinely held."
Levy appealed that decision to the Tennessee Court of Appeals.
Death penalty loses legitimacy as top lawyers distance themselves
By: Editorial Board
Lawyers think no problem has been invented that they can’t puzzle through, solve or argue their way out of.
So, there’s reason to pause when they throw up their hands and walk away from a fight. That’s what the nation’s pre-eminent group of legal scholars and practitioners has done with capital punishment. It says that problems associated with the death penalty are “intractable” — that the system is so broken that it no longer is willing to lend it legitimacy.
The American Law Institute has a significant stature in the legal profession, analogous to the National Academy of Sciences. It strives to improve, simplify and promote certainty within broad categories of law — such as contracts, remedies, property, trusts, torts, unfair competition, remedies and criminal law. Its work is painstaking in detail, glacial in pace and technical in nature.
Committees produce and revise drafts of copious model codes and restatements of the law, circulating them for comment and debate. Only those that survive the gauntlet of reviews are put to a vote of its general membership.
For nearly 50 years, the institute proposed what it considered to be the best legal framework for imposing the death penalty, standards that became part of its Model Penal Code.
But the organization has re-examined its position in light of actual experience. It commissioned a comprehensive study that sought to impartially weigh criticisms of how the death penalty functions in practice.
In late October, the membership voted to withdraw the Model Penal Code provision. The decision was based on what the members view as “intractable institutional obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment.”
These doubts should be familiar to citizens of Missouri and Illinois who have witnessed fundamental failures from close range.
Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan lost confidence in the system’s ability to prevent the executions of innocent people. He instituted a moratorium and then cleared out death row, pardoning four death row inmates and commuting the remaining death penalty sentences to life imprisonment.
Executions also are on hold in Missouri. Missouri uses a three-chemical “cocktail” that is supposed to anesthetize and paralyze the inmate before bringing about a massive heart attack, causing the condemned person’s death.
The state had been performing executions without fixed protocol. The chemicals had been administered by personnel with dubious medical credentials and who failed to keep accurate logs.
Now the courts are considering the constitutionality of Missouri’s efforts to remedy these problems.
The American Law Institute recruits the nation’s best, brightest and most accomplished lawyers, judges and scholars in the nation. Its members come from a wide ideological spectrum and take positions only by consensus.
They have not endorsed or opposed the abolition of capital punishment. But they have concluded that the framework that they proposed in 1962 “has not withstood the tests of time and experience.” They have decided that they no longer are willing to be complicit in how the death penalty is being administered.
An increasing number of Americans see the death penalty for what it is: a brutal, freakish system of punishment that is resistant to competent administration and that is dehumanizing to us all.
Now, even the sharpest lawyers are distancing themselves from the most severe punishment. They have concluded that it’s not worth trying to fix — or even to make an argument on its behalf. It cannot be fixed.
Lawyers think no problem has been invented that they can’t puzzle through, solve or argue their way out of.
So, there’s reason to pause when they throw up their hands and walk away from a fight. That’s what the nation’s pre-eminent group of legal scholars and practitioners has done with capital punishment. It says that problems associated with the death penalty are “intractable” — that the system is so broken that it no longer is willing to lend it legitimacy.
The American Law Institute has a significant stature in the legal profession, analogous to the National Academy of Sciences. It strives to improve, simplify and promote certainty within broad categories of law — such as contracts, remedies, property, trusts, torts, unfair competition, remedies and criminal law. Its work is painstaking in detail, glacial in pace and technical in nature.
Committees produce and revise drafts of copious model codes and restatements of the law, circulating them for comment and debate. Only those that survive the gauntlet of reviews are put to a vote of its general membership.
For nearly 50 years, the institute proposed what it considered to be the best legal framework for imposing the death penalty, standards that became part of its Model Penal Code.
But the organization has re-examined its position in light of actual experience. It commissioned a comprehensive study that sought to impartially weigh criticisms of how the death penalty functions in practice.
In late October, the membership voted to withdraw the Model Penal Code provision. The decision was based on what the members view as “intractable institutional obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment.”
These doubts should be familiar to citizens of Missouri and Illinois who have witnessed fundamental failures from close range.
Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan lost confidence in the system’s ability to prevent the executions of innocent people. He instituted a moratorium and then cleared out death row, pardoning four death row inmates and commuting the remaining death penalty sentences to life imprisonment.
Executions also are on hold in Missouri. Missouri uses a three-chemical “cocktail” that is supposed to anesthetize and paralyze the inmate before bringing about a massive heart attack, causing the condemned person’s death.
The state had been performing executions without fixed protocol. The chemicals had been administered by personnel with dubious medical credentials and who failed to keep accurate logs.
Now the courts are considering the constitutionality of Missouri’s efforts to remedy these problems.
The American Law Institute recruits the nation’s best, brightest and most accomplished lawyers, judges and scholars in the nation. Its members come from a wide ideological spectrum and take positions only by consensus.
They have not endorsed or opposed the abolition of capital punishment. But they have concluded that the framework that they proposed in 1962 “has not withstood the tests of time and experience.” They have decided that they no longer are willing to be complicit in how the death penalty is being administered.
An increasing number of Americans see the death penalty for what it is: a brutal, freakish system of punishment that is resistant to competent administration and that is dehumanizing to us all.
Now, even the sharpest lawyers are distancing themselves from the most severe punishment. They have concluded that it’s not worth trying to fix — or even to make an argument on its behalf. It cannot be fixed.
Demand more accountability for the wrongfully convicted
By DAVID HOFFMAN
Recently, hidden somewhere beneath the reports about Tiger Woods' extramarital excursions and the University of Notre Dame's hiring of a new football coach, came the news from the Associated Press that, after 35 years in prison, a Florida inmate named James Bain had been cleared by DNA testing. The AP further reported that Bain could have been exonerated sooner had the Florida courts not repeatedly rejected his previous petitions for DNA testing.
Was he lucky!
I say this facetiously of course, because obviously there's nothing lucky about having your life in the hands of a system that would rather exacerbate a lie than seek the truth. But Bain was lucky in three respects.
First, he was fortunate that the crime he was convicted of committing involved evidence subject to DNA testing. Many people are wrongfully convicted of crimes where no DNA evidence exists, thus making exoneration almost impossible.Second, he survived his ordeal, unlike Texas inmate Timothy Cole. In 1985, Cole was offered a plea bargain that guaranteed him probation in exchange for a guilty plea. Insisting upon his innocence, he refused, choosing instead to put his fate in the hands of the criminal justice system, known in attorney parlance as "rolling the dice."
He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He died there in 1999 at the age of 39. It was later discovered that another inmate had confessed to the crime Cole was convicted of, but his confession was ignored by the Texas legal system. Unaware Cole had died, this inmate eventually wrote to Cole's family, again admitting his guilt. DNA testing subsequently proved he was indeed the perpetrator.
Plea bargaining is often criticized on the basis that it treats the guilty too leniently. But, as Cole's case illustrates, it often treats the innocent too harshly. By making people fear the prospect of more severe punishment should they desire to go to trial, plea bargains can compel people to admit to crimes they did not commit.
Third, despite the repeated rejections of his DNA petitions, Bain was somewhat fortunate his ordeal occurred in Florida. Last year that state passed a law awarding wrongfully convicted inmates $50,000 a year for every year of their imprisonment. Texas passed a similar law in the aftermath of the Cole case, paying the exonerated $80,000 a year and offering free college tuition.
But if Bain's conviction had occurred in the state of Indiana, especially within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal Court, South Bend Division, chances are he would never receive a penny.Just ask Richard Alexander who, like Bain and Cole, was convicted largely on the basis on faulty eyewitness testimony. Alexander received no compensation for his nearly five and one-half years of imprisonment because Indiana has no laws to compensate the wrongfully convicted, and federal law applies the capricious requirement that, to receive compensation, wrongfully convicted people must prove they were prosecuted in "bad faith."
Professor Gary Wells of Iowa State University has studied the flaws in eyewitness identifications for years, and developed several procedures to make such identifications more reliable. Yet, according to Wells, most of the jurisdictions willing to implement these procedures have prosecutors who are appointed, rather than elected.
Released from the burden of having to trumpet their "conviction rates" to win votes, appointed prosecutors are apparently more receptive to implementing safeguards designed to reduce the risk of wrongful convictions.
Sadly, it appears that, despite Alexander's ordeal, there are no plans to introduce laws in Indiana to minimize the potential for erroneous eyewitness identifications or to compensate those wrongfully convicted.
In fact, officials in St. Joseph County are even trying to enhance the likelihood of wrongful convictions. State Reps. Craig Fry, D-Mishawaka, and Jackie Walorski, R-Jimtown, St. Joseph County Prosecutor Michael Dvorak and the Fraternal Order of Police all have advocated for elected judges based on the premise that appointed judges are too soft on crime. Yet they seem blissfully unconcerned about the fact that elected prosecutors may actually be more apt to engage (or not engage) in prosecutions for political gain, instead of in the name of justice.And where were Fry, Walorski, Dvorak and the FOP's outrage when an appointed federal magistrate denied Alexander any monetary damages?
What people fail to realize is that Alexander could be anyone. As the Indiana laws stand today, a person could lose his reputation, financial assets, liberty, and even his life simply because another person mistakenly, or even dishonestly, points a finger and says, "J'accuse."
Alexander's case also makes it painfully clear that the wrongfully convicted cannot rely on the local federal court for justice. So it's time to demand that the government of Indiana join the modern age. After all, most people, institutions and businesses are normally ready to embrace changes that will make their lives or their operations run more smoothly and reduce the chance of mistakes. And if those people, institutions or businesses fail to make such changes and by this failure cause injury to others, the legal system can hold them financially and sometimes criminally accountable. Yet this same system, at least in Indiana, cannot embrace change itself, and still believes it is unaccountable to those it has wrongfully convicted.
And that is perhaps the greatest crime of all.
David R. Hoffman lives in Mishawaka.
Recently, hidden somewhere beneath the reports about Tiger Woods' extramarital excursions and the University of Notre Dame's hiring of a new football coach, came the news from the Associated Press that, after 35 years in prison, a Florida inmate named James Bain had been cleared by DNA testing. The AP further reported that Bain could have been exonerated sooner had the Florida courts not repeatedly rejected his previous petitions for DNA testing.
Was he lucky!
I say this facetiously of course, because obviously there's nothing lucky about having your life in the hands of a system that would rather exacerbate a lie than seek the truth. But Bain was lucky in three respects.
First, he was fortunate that the crime he was convicted of committing involved evidence subject to DNA testing. Many people are wrongfully convicted of crimes where no DNA evidence exists, thus making exoneration almost impossible.Second, he survived his ordeal, unlike Texas inmate Timothy Cole. In 1985, Cole was offered a plea bargain that guaranteed him probation in exchange for a guilty plea. Insisting upon his innocence, he refused, choosing instead to put his fate in the hands of the criminal justice system, known in attorney parlance as "rolling the dice."
He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He died there in 1999 at the age of 39. It was later discovered that another inmate had confessed to the crime Cole was convicted of, but his confession was ignored by the Texas legal system. Unaware Cole had died, this inmate eventually wrote to Cole's family, again admitting his guilt. DNA testing subsequently proved he was indeed the perpetrator.
Plea bargaining is often criticized on the basis that it treats the guilty too leniently. But, as Cole's case illustrates, it often treats the innocent too harshly. By making people fear the prospect of more severe punishment should they desire to go to trial, plea bargains can compel people to admit to crimes they did not commit.
Third, despite the repeated rejections of his DNA petitions, Bain was somewhat fortunate his ordeal occurred in Florida. Last year that state passed a law awarding wrongfully convicted inmates $50,000 a year for every year of their imprisonment. Texas passed a similar law in the aftermath of the Cole case, paying the exonerated $80,000 a year and offering free college tuition.
But if Bain's conviction had occurred in the state of Indiana, especially within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal Court, South Bend Division, chances are he would never receive a penny.Just ask Richard Alexander who, like Bain and Cole, was convicted largely on the basis on faulty eyewitness testimony. Alexander received no compensation for his nearly five and one-half years of imprisonment because Indiana has no laws to compensate the wrongfully convicted, and federal law applies the capricious requirement that, to receive compensation, wrongfully convicted people must prove they were prosecuted in "bad faith."
Professor Gary Wells of Iowa State University has studied the flaws in eyewitness identifications for years, and developed several procedures to make such identifications more reliable. Yet, according to Wells, most of the jurisdictions willing to implement these procedures have prosecutors who are appointed, rather than elected.
Released from the burden of having to trumpet their "conviction rates" to win votes, appointed prosecutors are apparently more receptive to implementing safeguards designed to reduce the risk of wrongful convictions.
Sadly, it appears that, despite Alexander's ordeal, there are no plans to introduce laws in Indiana to minimize the potential for erroneous eyewitness identifications or to compensate those wrongfully convicted.
In fact, officials in St. Joseph County are even trying to enhance the likelihood of wrongful convictions. State Reps. Craig Fry, D-Mishawaka, and Jackie Walorski, R-Jimtown, St. Joseph County Prosecutor Michael Dvorak and the Fraternal Order of Police all have advocated for elected judges based on the premise that appointed judges are too soft on crime. Yet they seem blissfully unconcerned about the fact that elected prosecutors may actually be more apt to engage (or not engage) in prosecutions for political gain, instead of in the name of justice.And where were Fry, Walorski, Dvorak and the FOP's outrage when an appointed federal magistrate denied Alexander any monetary damages?
What people fail to realize is that Alexander could be anyone. As the Indiana laws stand today, a person could lose his reputation, financial assets, liberty, and even his life simply because another person mistakenly, or even dishonestly, points a finger and says, "J'accuse."
Alexander's case also makes it painfully clear that the wrongfully convicted cannot rely on the local federal court for justice. So it's time to demand that the government of Indiana join the modern age. After all, most people, institutions and businesses are normally ready to embrace changes that will make their lives or their operations run more smoothly and reduce the chance of mistakes. And if those people, institutions or businesses fail to make such changes and by this failure cause injury to others, the legal system can hold them financially and sometimes criminally accountable. Yet this same system, at least in Indiana, cannot embrace change itself, and still believes it is unaccountable to those it has wrongfully convicted.
And that is perhaps the greatest crime of all.
David R. Hoffman lives in Mishawaka.
Report: Who raped boy in 1974?
The state attorney in Polk County wants to find the person who raped a 9-year-old in Lake Wales in 1974 now that the original suspect, James Bain, was recently exonerated by DNA evidence.
Who raped that boy in Polk County in 1974? That's the question the state attorney in Polk County wants to answer after the original suspect, James Bain, was released from prison recently after a DNA test proved he did not commit the crime, the Lakeland Ledger is reporting.
State Attorney Jerry Hill said a new investigation has not generated much in the way of leads to find the person who really raped the 9-year-old boy in Lake Wales, the newspaper said.
Who raped that boy in Polk County in 1974? That's the question the state attorney in Polk County wants to answer after the original suspect, James Bain, was released from prison recently after a DNA test proved he did not commit the crime, the Lakeland Ledger is reporting.
State Attorney Jerry Hill said a new investigation has not generated much in the way of leads to find the person who really raped the 9-year-old boy in Lake Wales, the newspaper said.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Death row inmate's sentence vacated
IQ too low for execution of man who killed clerk in 1981
By JAY STAPLETON
Staff Writer
DAYTONA BEACH -- A local judge vacated the sentence of one of Volusia County's oldest death penalty cases, finding that Ted Herring's IQ is too low for him to be executed for killing a convenience store clerk in 1981.
Last month, Circuit Judge Joseph Will signed the order setting aside the death sentence, which had been handed down after Herring's trial in February 1982.
Circuit Judge S. James Foxman followed a jury's 8-4 recommendation that Herring be executed for shooting Norman Dale Hoeltzel in the left side of the head with a .22-caliber bullet.
Herring killed the clerk for $23.84 at the 7-Eleven at 705 S. Ridgewood Ave.
The store is still there, but much has changed in the law over the past 28 years, lawyers say, including the 2002 law that prohibits execution of any person with an IQ below 70.
"There is ample evidence in the record that throughout his life, Herring has suffered from significant limitations in adaptive functioning in multiple areas," Will wrote in the ruling.
The state Attorney General's Office, which argued against the order, has appealed the decision to the Florida Supreme Court. "We are currently reviewing the court's order but we cannot comment further while an appeal is pending," Ryan Wiggins, spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill McCollum said today.
Hoeltzel, 29, was working the nightshift when he was killed. Two men found his body on the floor in the store. In addition to the bullet wound to the head, he also was shot through his left hand and neck.
During the trial, prosecutor Gayle Graziano showed jurors testimony that Herring fired the second shot because Hoeltzel was still alive and he wanted no witnesses. Herring was suspected in several other armed robberies of convenience stores at the time.
In asking for the electric chair, Graziano reminded the jury of testimony that Herring told a parole officer Hoeltzel "got what he deserved for trying to play here; now there's one less cracker."
Herring will remain on death row while appeal is pending.
If the order is affirmed, he'll be sentenced to life in prison. If the state wins its appeal, he could be put to death.
Peyton Quarles, who as a young assistant public defender represented Herring at trial, said the defense had indications at the time that "he suffered from some mental illness."
Quarles did put Dorothy Myers, Herring's mother, on the stand to testify about his upbringing in the Harlem section of New York City. She said he had a difficult childhood: that his father left the family when Herring was four, he was hyperactive, had learning disabilities and quit school in the fifth grade.
"I love Ted with all my heart," she said back then. "He's not really the person he's pictured to be."
At the time, Herring's IQ was not itself an issue that could keep him from execution, Quarles noted. "Here, it has given Mr. Herring relief."
jay.stapleton@news-jrnl.com
By JAY STAPLETON
Staff Writer
DAYTONA BEACH -- A local judge vacated the sentence of one of Volusia County's oldest death penalty cases, finding that Ted Herring's IQ is too low for him to be executed for killing a convenience store clerk in 1981.
Last month, Circuit Judge Joseph Will signed the order setting aside the death sentence, which had been handed down after Herring's trial in February 1982.
Circuit Judge S. James Foxman followed a jury's 8-4 recommendation that Herring be executed for shooting Norman Dale Hoeltzel in the left side of the head with a .22-caliber bullet.
Herring killed the clerk for $23.84 at the 7-Eleven at 705 S. Ridgewood Ave.
The store is still there, but much has changed in the law over the past 28 years, lawyers say, including the 2002 law that prohibits execution of any person with an IQ below 70.
"There is ample evidence in the record that throughout his life, Herring has suffered from significant limitations in adaptive functioning in multiple areas," Will wrote in the ruling.
The state Attorney General's Office, which argued against the order, has appealed the decision to the Florida Supreme Court. "We are currently reviewing the court's order but we cannot comment further while an appeal is pending," Ryan Wiggins, spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill McCollum said today.
Hoeltzel, 29, was working the nightshift when he was killed. Two men found his body on the floor in the store. In addition to the bullet wound to the head, he also was shot through his left hand and neck.
During the trial, prosecutor Gayle Graziano showed jurors testimony that Herring fired the second shot because Hoeltzel was still alive and he wanted no witnesses. Herring was suspected in several other armed robberies of convenience stores at the time.
In asking for the electric chair, Graziano reminded the jury of testimony that Herring told a parole officer Hoeltzel "got what he deserved for trying to play here; now there's one less cracker."
Herring will remain on death row while appeal is pending.
If the order is affirmed, he'll be sentenced to life in prison. If the state wins its appeal, he could be put to death.
Peyton Quarles, who as a young assistant public defender represented Herring at trial, said the defense had indications at the time that "he suffered from some mental illness."
Quarles did put Dorothy Myers, Herring's mother, on the stand to testify about his upbringing in the Harlem section of New York City. She said he had a difficult childhood: that his father left the family when Herring was four, he was hyperactive, had learning disabilities and quit school in the fifth grade.
"I love Ted with all my heart," she said back then. "He's not really the person he's pictured to be."
At the time, Herring's IQ was not itself an issue that could keep him from execution, Quarles noted. "Here, it has given Mr. Herring relief."
jay.stapleton@news-jrnl.com
Monday, January 4, 2010
Judge says accused shooter not competent to stand trial
By Sarah Lundy, Orlando Sentinel
2:58 PM EST, January 4, 2010
A judge found Jason Rodriguez -- the man accused in the downtown shooting last November -- incompetent to stand trial and ordered him to a state mental hospital for treatment.
Orange-Osceola Chief Judge Belvin Perry ruled after hearing from three psychiatrists and a psychologist who testified that Rodriguez was currently incompetent and could not help in his own defense.
Both Rodriguez's attorney, Public Defender Bob Wesley, and prosecutor Robin Wilkinson agreed that Rodriguez will likely become competent after treatment and return to Orange County to stand trial for first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.
The doctors testified that Rodriguez doesn't rationally understand what is happening — although he understands the role of the judge, prosecutor and defense attorney.
They told the court that Rodriguez is paranoid and believes his attorney is part of a conspiracy to destroy him. Others, including the FBI, Orange County government and his former employers, also have roles in that conspiracy.
"I do not believe he is capable of participating with defense counsel at the present time and implement a rational defense," forensic psychologist Daniel Tressler said.
Three of the doctors diagnosed Rodriguez with schizoaffective disorder with depressive type. The fourth said he needed more information to determine whether Rodriguez suffered from schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia.
During the hearing, Wesley often spoke to Rodriguez, 40, before he finished questioning the doctors.
Investigators say Rodriguez walked into the architectural-engineering firm RS&H on the eighth floor at the Gateway Center on Orange Avenue on Nov. 6, pulled a gun out and fired more than 20 rounds before fleeing the building.
Killed in the rampage was 26-year-old Otis Beckford of West Palm Beach.
Five others were wounded: Ferrell Hickson, 40; Guy Lugenbeel, 62; Edward Severino, 34; Gregory Hornbeck, 39; and Keyondra Harrison, 27.
Rodriguez worked for RS&H for 11 months until he was fired on June 13, 2007, for "performance issues."
The doctors reviewed some of Rodriguez's medical history, which included mental health treatment in 2002 and 2007. He had been involuntary committed by police twice in 2007 and had been prescribed various anti-psychotic medications. According to medical records, Rodriguez reported that he attempted suicide when he was 16 and his father suffered from schizophrenia, the doctors testified.
Rodriguez told the doctors, who evaluated him in November and December, that he does not suffer from any mental illness. He also has refused to take medication at the jail.
Rodriguez isn't helping prepare in his own defense, such as signing waiver forms needed by his attorneys to get records.
About 30 minutes into testimony this morning, Rodriguez asked to leave the courtroom. But when questioned by Wesley, Rodriguez said he had to stay.
"I find this situation totally disrespectful," he told the judge "As much as I don't want to be here . . . and look at those uniforms. I'll stay. But you know it's totally disrespectful and insulting to a person's intelligence."
The court took a 10-minute break at mid-morning. Rodriguez was escorted out of the courtroom, and Wesley consulted with doctors waiting to testify.
Rodriguez returned to the courtroom after the break and testimony continued.
After his arrest, he told investigators that people at RS&H harassed him and threw him out "for no reason."
In the past, Rodriguez has been involuntarily admitted to Lakeside Behavioral Healthcare. His mother has called police remove guns from her home for fear Rodriguez would use them to harm himself.
The judge will be looking at his current mental health status — not his mental health at the time of the crime.
If Perry declares Rodriguez incompetent, Rodriguez will be sent to a state mental health hospital where he will be treated. The goal: Make him competent to stand trial and be able to assist in his own defense.
Doctors will evaluate him and issue medication. If needed, Rodriguez may also attend classes where he will learn about the players in the courtroom; for example, a teacher will explain the roles of a judge, prosecutors and witnesses.
A defendant needs to understand what is happening in court, why it's happening and be able to assist in his own defense to be competent.
For some defendants, it only takes a few months to be found competent again. Others never become competent, and after five years charges are dismissed.
Sarah Lundy can be reached at slundy@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6218.
2:58 PM EST, January 4, 2010
A judge found Jason Rodriguez -- the man accused in the downtown shooting last November -- incompetent to stand trial and ordered him to a state mental hospital for treatment.
Orange-Osceola Chief Judge Belvin Perry ruled after hearing from three psychiatrists and a psychologist who testified that Rodriguez was currently incompetent and could not help in his own defense.
Both Rodriguez's attorney, Public Defender Bob Wesley, and prosecutor Robin Wilkinson agreed that Rodriguez will likely become competent after treatment and return to Orange County to stand trial for first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.
The doctors testified that Rodriguez doesn't rationally understand what is happening — although he understands the role of the judge, prosecutor and defense attorney.
They told the court that Rodriguez is paranoid and believes his attorney is part of a conspiracy to destroy him. Others, including the FBI, Orange County government and his former employers, also have roles in that conspiracy.
"I do not believe he is capable of participating with defense counsel at the present time and implement a rational defense," forensic psychologist Daniel Tressler said.
Three of the doctors diagnosed Rodriguez with schizoaffective disorder with depressive type. The fourth said he needed more information to determine whether Rodriguez suffered from schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia.
During the hearing, Wesley often spoke to Rodriguez, 40, before he finished questioning the doctors.
Investigators say Rodriguez walked into the architectural-engineering firm RS&H on the eighth floor at the Gateway Center on Orange Avenue on Nov. 6, pulled a gun out and fired more than 20 rounds before fleeing the building.
Killed in the rampage was 26-year-old Otis Beckford of West Palm Beach.
Five others were wounded: Ferrell Hickson, 40; Guy Lugenbeel, 62; Edward Severino, 34; Gregory Hornbeck, 39; and Keyondra Harrison, 27.
Rodriguez worked for RS&H for 11 months until he was fired on June 13, 2007, for "performance issues."
The doctors reviewed some of Rodriguez's medical history, which included mental health treatment in 2002 and 2007. He had been involuntary committed by police twice in 2007 and had been prescribed various anti-psychotic medications. According to medical records, Rodriguez reported that he attempted suicide when he was 16 and his father suffered from schizophrenia, the doctors testified.
Rodriguez told the doctors, who evaluated him in November and December, that he does not suffer from any mental illness. He also has refused to take medication at the jail.
Rodriguez isn't helping prepare in his own defense, such as signing waiver forms needed by his attorneys to get records.
About 30 minutes into testimony this morning, Rodriguez asked to leave the courtroom. But when questioned by Wesley, Rodriguez said he had to stay.
"I find this situation totally disrespectful," he told the judge "As much as I don't want to be here . . . and look at those uniforms. I'll stay. But you know it's totally disrespectful and insulting to a person's intelligence."
The court took a 10-minute break at mid-morning. Rodriguez was escorted out of the courtroom, and Wesley consulted with doctors waiting to testify.
Rodriguez returned to the courtroom after the break and testimony continued.
After his arrest, he told investigators that people at RS&H harassed him and threw him out "for no reason."
In the past, Rodriguez has been involuntarily admitted to Lakeside Behavioral Healthcare. His mother has called police remove guns from her home for fear Rodriguez would use them to harm himself.
The judge will be looking at his current mental health status — not his mental health at the time of the crime.
If Perry declares Rodriguez incompetent, Rodriguez will be sent to a state mental health hospital where he will be treated. The goal: Make him competent to stand trial and be able to assist in his own defense.
Doctors will evaluate him and issue medication. If needed, Rodriguez may also attend classes where he will learn about the players in the courtroom; for example, a teacher will explain the roles of a judge, prosecutors and witnesses.
A defendant needs to understand what is happening in court, why it's happening and be able to assist in his own defense to be competent.
For some defendants, it only takes a few months to be found competent again. Others never become competent, and after five years charges are dismissed.
Sarah Lundy can be reached at slundy@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6218.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
After 35 Years and DNA James Bain is Free
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_57991.shtml
JANUARY 3, 2010
Byron Williams
Syndicated Columnist, Author, Pastor of the Resurrection Community Church Oakland, CA
Posted: January 3, 2010 04:29 PM
The United States legal system has a long and distinguished history that derives many of its legal traditions from English law; and English law traces its roots back to the Magna Carta written in 1215.
But the jurisprudence evolutionary process over the centuries has yet to yield a perfect system, nor will it ever. The legal profession is as ripe with imperfections as any other social science.
This is hardly a revelation, but certain mistakes within our legal system can alter an individual's life forever.
In 1974, James Bain convicted was of kidnapping and raping a 9-year-old boy. He was given a life sentence.
Bain was 19 when the crime was committed; he has spent every day since his conviction behind bars in a Florida prison. But after 35 years, Bain was recently set free when DNA tests revealed he did not commit the crime.
The ease in which someone could be wrongly convicted, given our flawed system is understandable; the time that it takes to exonerate them given our technological advances is not.
Bain was convicted on what continues to be the most convincing while perhaps the most unreliable method: eyewitness testimony. A jury will often hear eyewitness testimony unaware of the factors that can compromise the accuracy of an individual's statement.
Jurors may be unaware of the factors that can interfere with eyewitness perception such as any aspects of the event in question that could obstruct an individual's memory or prejudice their perspective.
Another favored method of prosecutors to obtain convictions is the use of testimony from those already in-custody also referred as "jailhouse snitches." In theory, witnesses with special knowledge of criminal activity would enable authorities to apprehend and prosecute suspects.
Since the primary motivation often includes a deal of some sort, it increases the likelihood that an informant would fabricate testimony.
Bain's conviction was based in large part on the eye witnessed testimony of the victim. According to the Innocence Project, the organization that helped Bain win his freedom, the victim described the perpetrator and the victim's uncle said the description sounded like James Bain. The victim then viewed a photo lineup and identified Bain as the perpetrator. He would later say in a deposition that he had been asked to "pick out Jimmie Bain."
Bain sought DNA testing several times on appeal, but was denied in 2001, 2003 and 2006. The Innocence Project of Florida took on his case and obtained DNA testing on evidence from the crime scene. The results confirmed that Bain was not the perpetrator.
But DNA testing is hardly a panacea for the inherent flaws embedded within our legal system. It can only be administered in approximately 10 percent of cases. That means 90 percent of the cases are still subject to the flaws of eyewitness testimony, jailhouse snitches, along with poor legal representation as the leading factors that put innocent people behind bars.
A small consolation, but Florida is one of 27 states that compensate for wrongful convictions. At $50,000 a year per year served Bain will receive roughly $1.7 million. Hardly adequate given what Bain has endured, but certainly better than the 23 states that have yet to reach the enlightenment to pass similar legislation.
Why doesn't every state compensate wrongful convictions?
Moreover, Bain becomes the latest example as to why the death penalty must be abolished. Supporters of the capital punishment emphasize the perpetrator of the crime to justify their position, while those who oppose the death penalty place emphasis on the innocent.
In a flawed legal system, the death penalty once it is carried out simply offers no recourse for the innocent. It is impossible to support the death penalty and not overtly or covertly support an error percentage higher than zero.
Bain, who has the distinction of serving longer than anyone who has been exonerated by DNA testing, calmly stated in his first few moments of freedom, "I'm not angry."
A truly astonishing statement when you consider that Bain was incarcerated several months before Richard Nixon resigned, one year before the movie Jaws premiered, 30 years before the Red Sox would win their first World Series since 1918, and 35 years before DNA testing would free him.
Follow Byron Williams on Twitter: www.twitter.com/byronspeaks
JANUARY 3, 2010
Byron Williams
Syndicated Columnist, Author, Pastor of the Resurrection Community Church Oakland, CA
Posted: January 3, 2010 04:29 PM
The United States legal system has a long and distinguished history that derives many of its legal traditions from English law; and English law traces its roots back to the Magna Carta written in 1215.
But the jurisprudence evolutionary process over the centuries has yet to yield a perfect system, nor will it ever. The legal profession is as ripe with imperfections as any other social science.
This is hardly a revelation, but certain mistakes within our legal system can alter an individual's life forever.
In 1974, James Bain convicted was of kidnapping and raping a 9-year-old boy. He was given a life sentence.
Bain was 19 when the crime was committed; he has spent every day since his conviction behind bars in a Florida prison. But after 35 years, Bain was recently set free when DNA tests revealed he did not commit the crime.
The ease in which someone could be wrongly convicted, given our flawed system is understandable; the time that it takes to exonerate them given our technological advances is not.
Bain was convicted on what continues to be the most convincing while perhaps the most unreliable method: eyewitness testimony. A jury will often hear eyewitness testimony unaware of the factors that can compromise the accuracy of an individual's statement.
Jurors may be unaware of the factors that can interfere with eyewitness perception such as any aspects of the event in question that could obstruct an individual's memory or prejudice their perspective.
Another favored method of prosecutors to obtain convictions is the use of testimony from those already in-custody also referred as "jailhouse snitches." In theory, witnesses with special knowledge of criminal activity would enable authorities to apprehend and prosecute suspects.
Since the primary motivation often includes a deal of some sort, it increases the likelihood that an informant would fabricate testimony.
Bain's conviction was based in large part on the eye witnessed testimony of the victim. According to the Innocence Project, the organization that helped Bain win his freedom, the victim described the perpetrator and the victim's uncle said the description sounded like James Bain. The victim then viewed a photo lineup and identified Bain as the perpetrator. He would later say in a deposition that he had been asked to "pick out Jimmie Bain."
Bain sought DNA testing several times on appeal, but was denied in 2001, 2003 and 2006. The Innocence Project of Florida took on his case and obtained DNA testing on evidence from the crime scene. The results confirmed that Bain was not the perpetrator.
But DNA testing is hardly a panacea for the inherent flaws embedded within our legal system. It can only be administered in approximately 10 percent of cases. That means 90 percent of the cases are still subject to the flaws of eyewitness testimony, jailhouse snitches, along with poor legal representation as the leading factors that put innocent people behind bars.
A small consolation, but Florida is one of 27 states that compensate for wrongful convictions. At $50,000 a year per year served Bain will receive roughly $1.7 million. Hardly adequate given what Bain has endured, but certainly better than the 23 states that have yet to reach the enlightenment to pass similar legislation.
Why doesn't every state compensate wrongful convictions?
Moreover, Bain becomes the latest example as to why the death penalty must be abolished. Supporters of the capital punishment emphasize the perpetrator of the crime to justify their position, while those who oppose the death penalty place emphasis on the innocent.
In a flawed legal system, the death penalty once it is carried out simply offers no recourse for the innocent. It is impossible to support the death penalty and not overtly or covertly support an error percentage higher than zero.
Bain, who has the distinction of serving longer than anyone who has been exonerated by DNA testing, calmly stated in his first few moments of freedom, "I'm not angry."
A truly astonishing statement when you consider that Bain was incarcerated several months before Richard Nixon resigned, one year before the movie Jaws premiered, 30 years before the Red Sox would win their first World Series since 1918, and 35 years before DNA testing would free him.
Follow Byron Williams on Twitter: www.twitter.com/byronspeaks
Broward Sheriff's Office says deputy beat prisoner
By DAVID SMILEY
dsmiley@MiamiHerald.com
For the second time in less than a week, a Broward Sheriff's Office deputy has been arrested and charged with criminal misconduct while on-duty.
Detention deputy Gladys Dauphin was charged Wednesday with aggravated battery and official misconduct after an internal investigation found that she attacked an inmate with her portable radio and then tried to cover up the incident.
BSO announced the charges Thursday, one day after Dauphin was arrested by Internal Affairs investigators.
The alleged attack happened about 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 20 inside inmate Darryl Cunningham's cell in the Broward main jail, according to an arrest affidavit filed by Detective Joe Kessling.
`DISFIGUREMENT'
The affidavit states that Dauphin, 37, entered Cunningham's cell to talk to him because he had disrespected her.
She had Cunningham sit on his bed and then struck him several times toward the back of his head with her police radio, he told investigators.
``The injuries resulted in permanent scarring and disfigurement,'' Kessling wrote in the report.
Cunningham, 25, received five staples in the jail infirmary after the incident to close a laceration.
``I got him,'' Dauphin allegedly said to Sgt. Edward Pierce after the incident.
Dauphin then tried to cover up the attack, using another deputy's identity to falsify jail records to show that Cunningham refused treatment after falling, according to the affidavit.
BSO spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright said the attack was reported on the day in which it occurred. Dauphin, who was hired in December of 2004, was placed on suspension with pay the day of the incident and throughout the following investigation.
SUSPENDED
Dauphin bonded out of jail Wednesday on $6,100 and has been suspended without pay.
She did not respond to a message left on her voicemail late Thursday afternoon.
Cunningham, who was in jail after being picked up on several warrants filed by Wilton Manors and Fort Lauderdale police, was released to the custody of the U.S. Marshals on March 6.
He is currently being held at the Federal Detention Center in Miami on charges of felony possession of a firearm, U.S. Marshals spokesman Barry Golden said.
Dauphin's arrest comes three days after Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti held a news conference to announce the arrest of Deputy Jonathan Bleiweiss, who is charged with more than a dozen counts of battery, sexual battery, stalking and false imprisonment.
Investigators say Bleiweiss, who in March was honored as employee of the year for the Broward Sheriff's Office's Oakland Park District, preyed on undocumented immigrants, molesting them while on duty.
Bleiweiss' attorney has said there is no reason to believe the accusations against the deputy.
`ARRESTING OUR OWN'
Coleman-Wright said Thursday that the arrested deputies shouldn't be a black eye for the sheriff's office.
``We're certainly disappointed by these two arrests but it also shows the public that we're dedicated to holding people responsible for actions even if it means arresting our own,'' she said.
dsmiley@MiamiHerald.com
For the second time in less than a week, a Broward Sheriff's Office deputy has been arrested and charged with criminal misconduct while on-duty.
Detention deputy Gladys Dauphin was charged Wednesday with aggravated battery and official misconduct after an internal investigation found that she attacked an inmate with her portable radio and then tried to cover up the incident.
BSO announced the charges Thursday, one day after Dauphin was arrested by Internal Affairs investigators.
The alleged attack happened about 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 20 inside inmate Darryl Cunningham's cell in the Broward main jail, according to an arrest affidavit filed by Detective Joe Kessling.
`DISFIGUREMENT'
The affidavit states that Dauphin, 37, entered Cunningham's cell to talk to him because he had disrespected her.
She had Cunningham sit on his bed and then struck him several times toward the back of his head with her police radio, he told investigators.
``The injuries resulted in permanent scarring and disfigurement,'' Kessling wrote in the report.
Cunningham, 25, received five staples in the jail infirmary after the incident to close a laceration.
``I got him,'' Dauphin allegedly said to Sgt. Edward Pierce after the incident.
Dauphin then tried to cover up the attack, using another deputy's identity to falsify jail records to show that Cunningham refused treatment after falling, according to the affidavit.
BSO spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright said the attack was reported on the day in which it occurred. Dauphin, who was hired in December of 2004, was placed on suspension with pay the day of the incident and throughout the following investigation.
SUSPENDED
Dauphin bonded out of jail Wednesday on $6,100 and has been suspended without pay.
She did not respond to a message left on her voicemail late Thursday afternoon.
Cunningham, who was in jail after being picked up on several warrants filed by Wilton Manors and Fort Lauderdale police, was released to the custody of the U.S. Marshals on March 6.
He is currently being held at the Federal Detention Center in Miami on charges of felony possession of a firearm, U.S. Marshals spokesman Barry Golden said.
Dauphin's arrest comes three days after Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti held a news conference to announce the arrest of Deputy Jonathan Bleiweiss, who is charged with more than a dozen counts of battery, sexual battery, stalking and false imprisonment.
Investigators say Bleiweiss, who in March was honored as employee of the year for the Broward Sheriff's Office's Oakland Park District, preyed on undocumented immigrants, molesting them while on duty.
Bleiweiss' attorney has said there is no reason to believe the accusations against the deputy.
`ARRESTING OUR OWN'
Coleman-Wright said Thursday that the arrested deputies shouldn't be a black eye for the sheriff's office.
``We're certainly disappointed by these two arrests but it also shows the public that we're dedicated to holding people responsible for actions even if it means arresting our own,'' she said.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Inmate's death prompts federal investigation
Posted: Aug 04, 2009 4:08 PM EDT
Updated: Aug 04, 2009 7:26 PM EDT
LEE COUNTY: An inmate died just days after officers used pepper spray to help restrain him. The Lee County Sheriff's Office and the attorney for the man's widow both confirm the federal government is looking into this death.
Officials we spoke to say it became a federal investigation because it deals with constitutional rights.
Back in March, 62-year-old Nicholas Christie was visiting his brother in Naples. After some arguments, he made his way to a couple of Fort Myers hotels where Lee County sheriff's deputies say he was causing trouble.
A sheriff's report notes that Christie was "loud and smelled heavily of alcoholic beverages and was upset his beer was missing."
Two days later, deputies arrested him again. On that occasion, it was on trespassing charges. He was taken to the Lee County Jail and that's where Christie's family says he was killed.
The family attorney, Nicholas DiCello, says deputies restrained Christie for six hours and used pepper spray on him.
"It appears that he was sprayed even after he was restrained and there were also some suggestions by some of the witnesses that a spit mask was placed over Christie's head until he ultimately stopped breathing," DiCello said.
Deputies took him to Gulf Coast Medical Center where he died from heart failure.
Officials with the Lee County Sheriff's Office wouldn't comment except to say that they are investigating, along with the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI.
"It's out understanding that the two or three individuals that were responsible for this are still employed and have not missed a day of work as a result of this," said DiCello.
The Christie family says it wants justice, but they have been told they'll have to wait for several investigations to wrap up before that happens.
Updated: Aug 04, 2009 7:26 PM EDT
LEE COUNTY: An inmate died just days after officers used pepper spray to help restrain him. The Lee County Sheriff's Office and the attorney for the man's widow both confirm the federal government is looking into this death.
Officials we spoke to say it became a federal investigation because it deals with constitutional rights.
Back in March, 62-year-old Nicholas Christie was visiting his brother in Naples. After some arguments, he made his way to a couple of Fort Myers hotels where Lee County sheriff's deputies say he was causing trouble.
A sheriff's report notes that Christie was "loud and smelled heavily of alcoholic beverages and was upset his beer was missing."
Two days later, deputies arrested him again. On that occasion, it was on trespassing charges. He was taken to the Lee County Jail and that's where Christie's family says he was killed.
The family attorney, Nicholas DiCello, says deputies restrained Christie for six hours and used pepper spray on him.
"It appears that he was sprayed even after he was restrained and there were also some suggestions by some of the witnesses that a spit mask was placed over Christie's head until he ultimately stopped breathing," DiCello said.
Deputies took him to Gulf Coast Medical Center where he died from heart failure.
Officials with the Lee County Sheriff's Office wouldn't comment except to say that they are investigating, along with the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI.
"It's out understanding that the two or three individuals that were responsible for this are still employed and have not missed a day of work as a result of this," said DiCello.
The Christie family says it wants justice, but they have been told they'll have to wait for several investigations to wrap up before that happens.
Swine flu sends 5 Collier jail inmates to isolation, another 69 quarantined
By LIZ FREEMAN
Friday, August 7, 2009
NAPLES — Five inmates in the Collier County jail are in medical isolation for flu-like symptoms and another 69 inmates are under 72-hour quarantine because they had contact with the ill inmates, according to Collier County Sheriff’s officials.
The quarantine also meant some inmates did not attend court hearings Friday, a decision that was made by jail officials.
“We made the decision not to take them to court,” said Collier County Sheriff’s Capt. Joe Bastys who is in charge of the jail. “If (the courts) want them in court, we will take them to court.”
On Monday, the Collier County Health Department was notified about one female inmate with flu-like symptoms and the health department recommended putting the cell block under restricted activity, said Deb Millsap, spokeswoman for the health department.
Restricted activity means not allowing the cell block inmates to have contact with others and if they must leave the jail, they should be required to wear masks, she said.
Because of a cluster of three inmates last week whose tests results came back positive for swine flu, the health department is assuming anyone else in the jail with flu-like symptoms has swine flu, she said. That also means test samples are no longer being taken from inmates for sending to a state laboratory for confirmation.
Mark Middlebrook, the Collier County court administrator, said the court system is following the protocols of the health department and would never tell the jail to break their quarantine.
If there are requests by attorneys to postpone court hearings, the judge involved makes the decision based on its merits, he said.
“In general, we follow the requests and directive of the health department,” Middlebrook said. “If there is a need for a person to be in court, there are mechanisms for them to be in court.”
The current jail population is 956 inmates, said Karie Partington, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.
The quarantine for the 69 inmates is because of the potential of cross contamination. Besides no contact with other inmates during the quarantine, the 69 inmates are not being allowed to go outside during recreation time, she said.
Friday, August 7, 2009
NAPLES — Five inmates in the Collier County jail are in medical isolation for flu-like symptoms and another 69 inmates are under 72-hour quarantine because they had contact with the ill inmates, according to Collier County Sheriff’s officials.
The quarantine also meant some inmates did not attend court hearings Friday, a decision that was made by jail officials.
“We made the decision not to take them to court,” said Collier County Sheriff’s Capt. Joe Bastys who is in charge of the jail. “If (the courts) want them in court, we will take them to court.”
On Monday, the Collier County Health Department was notified about one female inmate with flu-like symptoms and the health department recommended putting the cell block under restricted activity, said Deb Millsap, spokeswoman for the health department.
Restricted activity means not allowing the cell block inmates to have contact with others and if they must leave the jail, they should be required to wear masks, she said.
Because of a cluster of three inmates last week whose tests results came back positive for swine flu, the health department is assuming anyone else in the jail with flu-like symptoms has swine flu, she said. That also means test samples are no longer being taken from inmates for sending to a state laboratory for confirmation.
Mark Middlebrook, the Collier County court administrator, said the court system is following the protocols of the health department and would never tell the jail to break their quarantine.
If there are requests by attorneys to postpone court hearings, the judge involved makes the decision based on its merits, he said.
“In general, we follow the requests and directive of the health department,” Middlebrook said. “If there is a need for a person to be in court, there are mechanisms for them to be in court.”
The current jail population is 956 inmates, said Karie Partington, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.
The quarantine for the 69 inmates is because of the potential of cross contamination. Besides no contact with other inmates during the quarantine, the 69 inmates are not being allowed to go outside during recreation time, she said.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Ku Klux Klan prison officer fired
January 1, 2010 - 12:22PM
A US prison guard who acknowledged being a member of white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan has been fired for belonging to a subversive or terrorist organisation, a violation of the county agency's code of ethics.
Wayne Kerschner, an Alachua County Sheriff's Office corrections officer in Florida, was fired on Tuesday following a 10-month internal investigation.
The investigation revealed that Kerschner applied online for membership to the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan a year ago, paid $US30 a month for access to a members-only Klan web site and that the group did a thorough background check that included his credit history before allowing him to join.
The Klan has "extremely high standards", Kerschner told investigators, according to an administrative investigation report released on Thursday. "They do a complete criminal background check on everybody."
A spokesman for the sheriff's office didn't return a phone call on Thursday, and Kerschner's telephone number was not listed.
During the internal probe, Kerschner told investigators the Klan never asked him for information about the jail or the sheriff's office and that he never let his membership interfere with his job. He said he would never get involved with anything criminal and wouldn't ever jeopardise the sheriff's office. He said he viewed the Klan as a religious or political organisation.
"I don't let it interfere with my job," he said, according to the report. "I don't let it interfere with my personal judgment call on anything like that. I mean, I think I am a pretty dang fair officer."
Kerschner told authorities that he blogged regularly on a KKK web site, attended two rallies in Tennessee and was an officer of the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He said his wife was also a dues-paying member.
Kerschner gave some details into how he was inducted into the Klan in a process called "naturalisation". He said he was blindfolded during the ceremony and was touched on the shoulder with a sword after taking an oath. He said he was on probation for a month before he could have full access to the Klan web site, which offered information on Klan handshakes and the different colours available for Klan robes.
Kerschner told investigators he was sorry for getting involved with the Klan.
"If I could erase time, I would," he said.
AP
A US prison guard who acknowledged being a member of white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan has been fired for belonging to a subversive or terrorist organisation, a violation of the county agency's code of ethics.
Wayne Kerschner, an Alachua County Sheriff's Office corrections officer in Florida, was fired on Tuesday following a 10-month internal investigation.
The investigation revealed that Kerschner applied online for membership to the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan a year ago, paid $US30 a month for access to a members-only Klan web site and that the group did a thorough background check that included his credit history before allowing him to join.
The Klan has "extremely high standards", Kerschner told investigators, according to an administrative investigation report released on Thursday. "They do a complete criminal background check on everybody."
A spokesman for the sheriff's office didn't return a phone call on Thursday, and Kerschner's telephone number was not listed.
During the internal probe, Kerschner told investigators the Klan never asked him for information about the jail or the sheriff's office and that he never let his membership interfere with his job. He said he would never get involved with anything criminal and wouldn't ever jeopardise the sheriff's office. He said he viewed the Klan as a religious or political organisation.
"I don't let it interfere with my job," he said, according to the report. "I don't let it interfere with my personal judgment call on anything like that. I mean, I think I am a pretty dang fair officer."
Kerschner told authorities that he blogged regularly on a KKK web site, attended two rallies in Tennessee and was an officer of the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He said his wife was also a dues-paying member.
Kerschner gave some details into how he was inducted into the Klan in a process called "naturalisation". He said he was blindfolded during the ceremony and was touched on the shoulder with a sword after taking an oath. He said he was on probation for a month before he could have full access to the Klan web site, which offered information on Klan handshakes and the different colours available for Klan robes.
Kerschner told investigators he was sorry for getting involved with the Klan.
"If I could erase time, I would," he said.
AP
US death penalty brought into question
Posted By Susanna Woods On December 18, 2009 @ 1:06 pm In World
The US death penalty has been brought into question following the release of James Bain, wrongly sentenced to death and now freed thanks to DNA evidence.
The US death penalty has been brought into question following the release of a man wrongly imprisoned for 35 years. This brings the total number of exonerations to 140 since 1973 – 10 of which occurred this year.
The issue has been highlighted by the case of US citizen James Bain, who was charged with the kidnap and rape of a nine-year-old boy when he was just 19. Throughout his imprisonment Bain protested his innocence and now, aged 54, he has been cleared and set free following new DNA proof.
Washington’s Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) has released its 2009 year-end report, which has revealed the number of people sentenced to death in the US has fallen considerably over the last few years – in 2009 there were 106 death sentences, compared with 328 in 1994.
Sadly, one possible reason for the drop in executions is the current economic crisis – for example, the cost of just one execution in Maryland is US$37 million (£23m). According to the DPIC, 11 states have considered abolishing the death sentence because of the high costs involved.
However, with the number of death sentences rapidly decreasing, perhaps it is a sign that the sentence could one day be abolished completely in the US. Even states notorious for issuing death sentences have seen a decrease in executions – during the 1990s, Texas averaged 34 death sentences a year and Virginia averaged six. This year, Texas had nine death sentences and Virginia had one.
Richard Dieter, DPIC’s Executive Director and author of the report, said: “The annual number of death sentences in the US has dropped for seven straight years and is 60% less than in the 1990s. In the last two years, three states have abolished capital punishment and a growing number of states are asking whether it’s worth keeping. This entire decade has been marked by a declining use of the death penalty.”
The DPIC also revealed that a nationwide poll of US police chiefs, carried out earlier this year, stated they did not believe that the death penalty acted as a crime deterrent and “rated it as one of the most inefficient uses of taxpayer money in fighting crime”.
3,300 people are currently on death row in America, some for a long time as in the case of Florida’s William Thompson, who was on death row for more than 32 years. A judge, Justice John Paul Stevens, commented on Thompson’s case and called the treatment “dehumanizing”, noting that Thompson “had endured especially severe conditions of confinement, spending up to 23 hours per day in isolation in a 6- by 9-foot cell.”
Currently, 35 out of 50 US states have the death penalty – down one from last year as New Mexico ended the penalty in March 2009. Only 11 out of these 35 actually carried out an execution this year.
Copy on a US pro-death penalty website spoke in favour of execution: “With a yearly average of 15,000 murders, the fact that we are reaching 1,000 executions in only a little more than 30 years is proof that capital punishment has been reserved for the worst of the worst.
“The attention given to the execution of 1,000 murderers is repugnant, especially when the loudest voices think the death of a convicted murderer is a tragedy. Yet the deaths and suffering of countless victims is only an easily-ignored statistic.”
In the case of the recently-freed James Bain, the Innocence Project of Florida (IPF) helped secure his release. Bain had previously submitted handwritten motions four times requesting DNA testing, but he was denied each time. An appeals court overturned the denial of his fifth appeal.
Bain, having been imprisoned for 35 years, had missed much of life’s advances. He used a cell (mobile) phone for the first time in his life, and told CNN: “I’m not upset [about what happened] because I understand what took place. I always had God on my side.”
The US death penalty has been brought into question following the release of James Bain, wrongly sentenced to death and now freed thanks to DNA evidence.
The US death penalty has been brought into question following the release of a man wrongly imprisoned for 35 years. This brings the total number of exonerations to 140 since 1973 – 10 of which occurred this year.
The issue has been highlighted by the case of US citizen James Bain, who was charged with the kidnap and rape of a nine-year-old boy when he was just 19. Throughout his imprisonment Bain protested his innocence and now, aged 54, he has been cleared and set free following new DNA proof.
Washington’s Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) has released its 2009 year-end report, which has revealed the number of people sentenced to death in the US has fallen considerably over the last few years – in 2009 there were 106 death sentences, compared with 328 in 1994.
Sadly, one possible reason for the drop in executions is the current economic crisis – for example, the cost of just one execution in Maryland is US$37 million (£23m). According to the DPIC, 11 states have considered abolishing the death sentence because of the high costs involved.
However, with the number of death sentences rapidly decreasing, perhaps it is a sign that the sentence could one day be abolished completely in the US. Even states notorious for issuing death sentences have seen a decrease in executions – during the 1990s, Texas averaged 34 death sentences a year and Virginia averaged six. This year, Texas had nine death sentences and Virginia had one.
Richard Dieter, DPIC’s Executive Director and author of the report, said: “The annual number of death sentences in the US has dropped for seven straight years and is 60% less than in the 1990s. In the last two years, three states have abolished capital punishment and a growing number of states are asking whether it’s worth keeping. This entire decade has been marked by a declining use of the death penalty.”
The DPIC also revealed that a nationwide poll of US police chiefs, carried out earlier this year, stated they did not believe that the death penalty acted as a crime deterrent and “rated it as one of the most inefficient uses of taxpayer money in fighting crime”.
3,300 people are currently on death row in America, some for a long time as in the case of Florida’s William Thompson, who was on death row for more than 32 years. A judge, Justice John Paul Stevens, commented on Thompson’s case and called the treatment “dehumanizing”, noting that Thompson “had endured especially severe conditions of confinement, spending up to 23 hours per day in isolation in a 6- by 9-foot cell.”
Currently, 35 out of 50 US states have the death penalty – down one from last year as New Mexico ended the penalty in March 2009. Only 11 out of these 35 actually carried out an execution this year.
Copy on a US pro-death penalty website spoke in favour of execution: “With a yearly average of 15,000 murders, the fact that we are reaching 1,000 executions in only a little more than 30 years is proof that capital punishment has been reserved for the worst of the worst.
“The attention given to the execution of 1,000 murderers is repugnant, especially when the loudest voices think the death of a convicted murderer is a tragedy. Yet the deaths and suffering of countless victims is only an easily-ignored statistic.”
In the case of the recently-freed James Bain, the Innocence Project of Florida (IPF) helped secure his release. Bain had previously submitted handwritten motions four times requesting DNA testing, but he was denied each time. An appeals court overturned the denial of his fifth appeal.
Bain, having been imprisoned for 35 years, had missed much of life’s advances. He used a cell (mobile) phone for the first time in his life, and told CNN: “I’m not upset [about what happened] because I understand what took place. I always had God on my side.”
Anniversary of ''Jessica's Law''
By: FRANCISCO DÍAZ, Thursday, December 31, 2009
" Jessica's Law " offers a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison to those who commit a violent sex offense.
LAREDO, Tx.- More than one year since the so called " Jessica's Law " was implemented that persuaded authorities to apply a more severe punishment against sex offenders that attack children, that includes the death penalty.
The HB 8 Law, was in effect in the state of Texas since September 2008, and has become an excellent tool for justice so that judges may offer a more severe penalty.
" Jessica's Law " offers a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison to those who commit a violent sex offense against minors under the age of 14, this is to say, that this eliminates the possibilty of parole.
Upon eliminating the benefit of parole for such violent cases, this will send out a strong message to those sex offenders...they will not be tolerated in the community.
Besides, these sex predators may receive the capital punishment if they have committed two similiar cases against minors under the age of 14, this is to say, death by lethal injection.
Another important change, to those who harbor a sex predator, who is sought after for not registering to authorities, commit a third degree felony, and could be sentenced up to 10 years in prison.
This law was also motivated from the Jessica Lunsford case. A Florida youth that was raped and murdered in February of 2005 by a se offender named John Couey, that continued down the same road since the punishment was not severe enough the first time
" Jessica's Law " offers a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison to those who commit a violent sex offense.
LAREDO, Tx.- More than one year since the so called " Jessica's Law " was implemented that persuaded authorities to apply a more severe punishment against sex offenders that attack children, that includes the death penalty.
The HB 8 Law, was in effect in the state of Texas since September 2008, and has become an excellent tool for justice so that judges may offer a more severe penalty.
" Jessica's Law " offers a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison to those who commit a violent sex offense against minors under the age of 14, this is to say, that this eliminates the possibilty of parole.
Upon eliminating the benefit of parole for such violent cases, this will send out a strong message to those sex offenders...they will not be tolerated in the community.
Besides, these sex predators may receive the capital punishment if they have committed two similiar cases against minors under the age of 14, this is to say, death by lethal injection.
Another important change, to those who harbor a sex predator, who is sought after for not registering to authorities, commit a third degree felony, and could be sentenced up to 10 years in prison.
This law was also motivated from the Jessica Lunsford case. A Florida youth that was raped and murdered in February of 2005 by a se offender named John Couey, that continued down the same road since the punishment was not severe enough the first time
Top ten stories of 2009
Highlands Today staff
In an upshot, if 2009 made us all a little poorer, it also made us all cleaner and more hygiene-oriented.
It brought heartaches, joy and astonishment to Highlands County residents. It also brought closure to the family of a Florida Highway Patrol trooper ruthlessly killed while on duty.
The economy continued to roil; residents endured not one but three anthrax hoaxes; ordinary residents prodded city hall into action in Venus and Sun 'n Lake, and swine flu got us all a little closer to sanitizers.
ONE: Economic woes multiply
SEBRING The Great Recession exacerbated idleness for a second year in 2009 with falling home prices and greater unemployment, bankruptcies, foreclosures and poverty.
When 2008 dawned, Florida's unemployment rate was a healthy 4.7 percent. Only 441,000 were looking for work, and the state boasted about the 85,800 jobs added in the previous year.
In Highlands County, the unemployment rate was just 5.3 percent; our population was growing. We felt invincible.
Then, the housing-banking bubble burst. The latest numbers: sluggishness in building and trade sectors pushed local unemployment to 11.7 percent – its highest level since May 1975, when Gerald Ford was president. Florida 284,800 lost jobs.
Businesses downsized workforces. The state, the county, the cities, the court clerk, even the post office shrank. Lake Placid combined routes. The Sebring office didn't replace several workers.
Unfed masses
Among the alarming numbers were breadwinners who needed food stamps to put dinner on the table. In Highlands County, the numbers doubled in two years, from 7,785 moms, dads and kids on public assistance in December 2007 to 14,056 in November 2009. Nineteen percent of Highlands County people are now on state assistance.
"These are not the customers we saw before," said Liesta Sykes, community relations manager at the Sebring office. "They lost individual income recently due to layoffs and shutdowns."
In the inflationary economy, everything went up: milk, orange juice, peanut butter. The price of gasoline blazed from $2.60 to $4.15 in 2008, but thankfully subsided to $2.65 by the close of 2009.
By Thanksgiving, Church Service Center in Avon Park fed 700 families a month – 25 percent more than last year. In Lake Placid, Manna Ministries gave food to 480 of the poorest families in the southern half of Highlands County.
The sheer numbers of people who now beg for their food is disquieting even to food pantry directors, who see people line up every day for a handout.
"We spend most of our time making the new clients feel comfortable," said Bill Stephenson at Church Service Center in Avon Park. "They're embarrassed and ashamed about holding out their hand. Some of them won't stand in line because of their own personal pride."
Some people surrendered. By mid-year, bankruptcy filings were up 40 percent over the previous year.
"It's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better," attorney Gary Gossett predicted in April.
Some people bought guns. The recession is reportedly why the number of concealed weapon permits in Highlands shot from 15 a month in 2003 to an average of 135 a month in 2009. Three out of every 100 Floridians are permitted to pack heat — 608,000 total.
Some people lost their homes. In 2008, a record 1,181 foreclosures were recorded. About 1,500 were expected before 2009. Abandoned houses doubled the number of open code enforcement cases in Highlands County.
Some people sleep in their cars. It's a sign, economists have been saying, that unemployment has expanded into the middle class.
"It brings you up short," said Stephenson, uneasiness apparent in his voice.
Budget cuts Plummeting retail sales and land values made budgets a moving target. Lower taxes were a godsend to homeowners, but for governments, declining property values were the devil.
Property Appraiser Raymond McIntyre said local residential property values went down 15 to 20 percent. In real dollars, $9 million was taken from Highlands County's $164 million budget. Even so, local governments held the line against higher taxes.
Instead, budgets were cut. Highlands County deleted the $11.5 million line item for a new sheriff's office on George Boulevard, and 27 county employees were laid off. Court clerks were furloughed.
None was hit harder than the Highlands County building department. After the 2004 hurricanes and the speculative housing tsunami of 2005, S.Y. Moseley Jr.'s office nailed a respectable $1.36 million in revenues.
Until 2007. "It was like somebody shut off the water valve," Moseley said. Income deconstructed to $400,000 in 2009. The number of clerks and inspectors shrank from 14 to seven.
Tourism and immigration were affected. Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew Hispanic Center, non-partisan researcher told USA Today for a July 21 story that 30 to 50 percent fewer Mexicans came to the U.S. — legally or illegally — in 2008, compared with 2006.
That leaves citrus growers like Ben Albritton wondering if there will be enough pickers.
"It's too early to tell," Albritton said. "We'll know after the first of the year."
Even so, Florida grew. Despite an exodus of nearly 32,000 residents to other states, Florida's population rose by 114,091 during the year ending July 1, 2009. One reason: an influx of 87,381 international immigrants and a natural increase of 58,169 as births outnumbered deaths for the year, the Census Bureau said.
Recession mode
Conversely, RV parks and fishing resorts are doing well in a poor economy. Snowbirds ignored the 50 percent freefall in their stock market-based IRAs, and made winter reservations in Highlands County.
"My park is already full for next year," Mary Cassidy in April. She and her husband, Edward, manage Whispering Pines Village on Brunns Road, a few blocks south of Lakeshore Mall.
People coped. Restaurants tempted customers with sweet deals. McDonald's Wendy's, Denny's, Burger King, Arby's, DQ, Subway, Red Lobster, Captain D's — all offered recession specials.
At Woody's Bar-B-Q, there are seven luncheon specials. Nearly every customer who walks in will order one. Said general manager Rodney Horton, "It's helped tremendously."
Commissioners hoped to spur a new building boom, and suspended impact fees in July. It's impossible to know whether the moratorium helped or the economy improved, but by December, permits were up to two a week.
TWO: Residents scramble to fight swine flu
SEBRING In recent years, no illness stirred up as much talk and worry among people locally like the swine flu.
Whether the vaccines were safe, who should get them, when they would arrive and if it was safe to keep our children in schools, were just some of the concerns of residents.
The swine flu hit the United States in April, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They listed the most vulnerable groups as children under 5 years, the elderly and pregnant women.
Highlands County had its first confirmed case of swine flu on May 20, when a 4-year-old boy tested positive for H1N1.
Four months later, the county's first and only confirmed swine flu death was 14-year-old Marquis Hamilton. Hamilton's symptoms seemed to have developed overnight.
The junior varsity football player had complained of fever and stomach aches. The next day, Sept. 11, he died in Highlands Regional Medical Center.
The county also is awaiting confirmation by the medical examiner's office on a 60-year-old man who died and tested positive for H1N1.
Tom Moran, Highlands County Health Department official, said the cause of death has not been confirmed but they should be receiving a final report in about three weeks.
According to Moran, the county began requesting vaccines in October but short supplies by the manufacturer led to delays nationwide.
Like other county health departments, they received and distributed them to local doctors and clinics in small allotments to the higher risk groups.
"It took longer than expected. We had to cancel the first clinics because we didn't have the vaccines," Moran said.
The first clinic was opened in November for the higher risk groups. When more shipments of vaccines arrived, they opened it to the general public.
An estimated 5,249 people were administered the vaccine in Highlands County. The health department said that's 31 percent of the vaccines exported to the county.
THREE: County faces not one, but three anthrax hoaxes
SEBRING Highlands County was not the anthrax hoax capital of the United States, but in 2009, it sure felt that way.
There were three such hoaxes this year and each one kept residents on their toes, but none more so than the first.
On April 2, a nurse at Florida Hospital Heartland Division found an envelope under the windshield wiper of her vehicle at 2 a.m. Inside was a white substance and a note indicating it was anthrax.
The hospital was put on lockdown and remained that way for more than 12 hours. As the day progressed, more envelopes were found in the mailboxes of Sun 'n Lake residents and in the neighborhood east of U.S. 27 across from Sun 'n Lake.
Local, state and federal agencies ended up recovering around 80 envelopes, with 48 of them on windshields at the hospital. The substance tested negative for anthrax.
Jerron Mario Moffitt, 21, was charged with 76 counts of possession of a hoax weapon of mass destruction in connection with the hoax. He is next scheduled for a Jan. 20 pretrial conference.
A co-defendant, Cele Pete Carmona, 20, pleaded no contest to one count of possession of a hoax weapon of mass destruction. Per the agreement, he was placed on five years probation and must complete 100 hours of community service.
The second hoax came in July, when the Highlands County Sheriff's Office was evacuated after two envelopes containing a suspicious white powder arrived in the mail.
Approximately 40 employees were evacuated from the first and second floors shortly after the envelopes arrived. Again, the powder tested negative and a suspect, Cally-Jo Richardson, was arrested in connection with the hoax.
Finally, in October, a hazardous materials team was sent to the Lakeshore Mall movie theater around 8:30 p.m. after another mysterious white powder was found inside a roll of quarters.
The theaters were evacuated and the substance was sent to Tampa for testing and came back negative for the presence of anthrax or some other biochemical.
No arrests were made and no investigation was started.
FOUR: Sottile's murderer gets death
BARTOW Polk County Judge J. Michael Hunter formally sentenced Joshua Lee Altersberger to death in June for the Jan. 12, 2007 killing of Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Nicholas Sottile.
Altersberger pleaded guilty March 13 to shooting Sottile during a Highlands County traffic stop. On April 2, a Polk County jury recommended on a 9-3 vote that the defendant receive the death penalty.
His guilty plea came three days before jury selection was to begin in his trial. A panel of 12 was still chosen to hear testimony before deciding whether Altersberger should receive life or death.
Over four days of testimony, victim impact statements and comments from family members in late March and early April, much was learned about the two men whose paths crossed tragically on that day in January 2007.
Sottile was described as a man dedicated to his friends, colleagues and family.
"My dad was all about our family," said daughter Heather Sottile, when giving her victim impact statement.
Altersberger's home life was in direct contrast to Sottile's. He was born under tragic circumstances, the result of his mother being raped by a man she called her friend.
When the recommendation was read, Rosalie Altersberger, the defendant's mother, sat in the audience and grasped the hand of her youngest daughter.
Altersberger's case is continuing through the Polk County court system. At his formal sentencing, his attorney told Hunter he wished to withdraw from the plea by claiming bad advice that led to his pleading guilty.
The case has since been continued.
FIVE: Former AP officer charged in toddler's death
AVON PARK Former Avon Park Police Officer James Parker was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in connection with the death of 22-month-old Kaedyn Short.
On March 29, Parker, then 32, and on the Avon Park Police force, was reportedly watching the child while her mother, Jennifer Short, was at work.
Parker and Short brought the child to the Highlands Regional Medical Center emergency room on March 29. Doctors told authorities that the toddler suffered several
skull fractures and had multiple bruises over her body.
The child was transferred to All Children's Hospital, St. Petersburg and died May 27 in a hospice home.
The former officer entered a not guilty plea on July 27 to the charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.
At Parker's Dec. 10 pretrial conference, a continuance was granted with the next court date set for March 18.
Jennifer Short, 28, was indicted in June on felony counts of failure to report child abuse and neglect of a child causing great bodily harm.
Also in June, Sara J. Vasquez, 25, of Zolfo Springs and Linda L. Payne, 39, of Sebring, were both indicted for misdemeanor failure to report child abuse. The two worked at the daycare Kaedyn Short attended, according to the Highlands County Sheriff's Office.
SIX: Sheriff's office gets new digs
SEBRING Some personnel with the Highlands County Sheriff's Office got new digs this year at a spanking new building at Liberty Star Plaza, on the corner of South George Boulevard and U.S. 27.
Citing the tough economy, county commissioners put the kibosh on plans for a new $11 million building that was to go up just a few hundred yards away from Liberty Star Plaza.
The new building encompasses about 9,000 square feet, with an additional 2,000 square feet for storage, according to a prior report.
It holds the sheriff's criminal investigations unit, patrol deputies, special investigations unit, crime scene investigators, detectives and their secretaries, about 110 people.
By the way, the star was on the new plaza building long before the sheriff's move, and is just there by a nice coincidence, said Lisa Burley, the sheriff's chief of staff.
"I think it's working out well," said Burley on Monday. "We've had a lot of positive comments from the public about the location. They like the visibility and access and our troops seem to really like it, too. So we're making the best of bad situation. That's a pretty good outcome."
The search for a new space had been ongoing for several months.
In July, Sheriff Susan Benton told the commissioners she was interested in renting the first floor of the three-story Sun Trust Bank building in downtown Sebring.
That move could have cost about $2.5 million more for renovating and equipping the building to meet the sheriff's needs. The Liberty building needed $261,000 to complete, a previous report stated.
Burley said the smelly old section where much of the sheriff's staff was moved from is scheduled to be checked out by an engineering firm for an "indoor environmental quality evaluation" to take samples for airborne microbes.
There have been problems in the outdated building with the sickening aroma of sewage and possibly mold.
The old building still houses records, civil, warrants, 911, information technology, legal, internal affairs, and administration.
Plans remain to invest $1.3 million in the old building, "just to keep us functional," said Burley, as well as plans to spend $400,000 in the Emergency Operations Center for a secondary 911 backup system.
SEVEN: Commissioners veto Eagle war games plan
SEBRING The battle over the Eagle National Security Training Center started July 17, 2008 when Seth Ellis showed up at a Highlands County commissioners meeting, asking for expedited approval to build on the 7,696-acre Southern Farms.
Hoping for 250 jobs, the commissioners initially approved the request. It was sailing through the process until August, when environmentalists and residents of the Venus community finally heard about it. Two residents hadn't been legally notified, so the notification and permitting process started again.
Word was passed in the community. Eagle wanted a 6,000-foot runway, a rifle and pistol range, machine guns, a shoot house, buildings half the size of Lakeshore Mall, up to 1,000 students, and 250-foot-tall training towers.
A year after the project was proposed, more than a dozen angry residents came to Planning and Zoning meeting and made their opposition known.
Then, on Sept. 24, 200 opponents gathered at Venus Community Center. They hoped for answers from Bert Harris III, the attorney for Greg Eagle, a Cape Coral real estate developer who wanted to spend $425 million to build the facility. Harris and Ron Grigsby, the owner of Southern Farms, refused to speak.
At two commission meetings, Venus residents filled the Highlands County Government Center auditorium and convinced the commissioners, who voted 5-0 and killed the project.
At the November hearing, Grigsby said Eagle – who lost several million on 2009 real estate deals – was now only peripherally involved.
Grigsby is appealing. Administrative law Judge J. Lawrence Johnston in Tallahassee has given the county, the Department of Community Affairs and Southern Farms until Jan. 5 to decide on a stipulated settlement agreement, even though the county commissioners have already voted against the deal.
EIGHT: Stimulus money keeps some school jobs afloat
SEBRING Last year, the School Board of Highlands County cut about 67 teaching positions. This year, another 65 were cut, the casualty of declining enrollment and state funding cuts.
It could have been worse without federal stimulus money. Sixty-nine regular teaching positions and 25 exceptional student education teaching slots were saved with these dollars.
But the stimulus money covers a two-year period, after which funding from another source will be needed to pay the 31 physical education teachers, 18 music/band/chorus teachers, three high school art teachers and 17 media specialists, among others.
By changing to a common planning schedule in the middle and high schools, the district cut 42 teaching positions, but teachers quickly expressed their dissatisfaction with what they described as a stressful schedule.
At a September school board meting, Avon Park Middle School teacher Sandra York said, "The stress level is unreal. I teach non-stop like everybody else does."
The tough budget climate also led to an impasse in the contract negotiations between the district and the teacher and school support unions.
At separate impasse hearings in October, the school board, sitting as a special legislative body, ruled in favor of the district's position of freezing pay raises.
After years of increasing student enrollment through the 2006-07 school year, the district's enrollment is down again this year by about 120 to 130 students compared to last year.
NINE: Real Estate sales perk up – somewhat
SEBRING After two years of being in the doldrums, real estate sales saw a ray of light this year, fueled, in part, by low home prices, low interest rates and the extended first-time home buyer tax credit program.
The tightening credit market meant that home loans got harder to come by and buyers generally had to plonk down more in downpayment, but foreclosures and short sales drove down home prices to new lows.
As of Dec. 22, the total number of homes sold this year in Highlands County was 1,109, compared to 935 in 2008, an increase of 19 percent.
The news was encouraging in the rest of the state, too. Florida Realtors reported that home sales statewide increased 61 percent in November compared to the year before. In Highlands County, Steve Fruit, RE/MAX Realty Plus II broker associate, estimated that November sales increased about 29 percent compared to 2008.
The federal government extended the homebuyer assistance program from Nov. 30 deadline to April 30.
Besides a credit of up to $8,000 for first-time buyers, Congress also expanded the program to include homeowners who have lived in their current properties for at least five years. They can now claim a tax credit of up to $6,500 if they relocate.
TEN: Sun 'n Lakes voting method changes
SEBRING In early April, the Highlands County Board of County Commissioners voted to change the voting rules for landowner elections in the Sun 'n Lake of Sebring Improvement District by reducing the voting power of large landowners.
Under the new rules, each landowner with an acre or less would receive one vote.
This reduced by three quarters the voting power of larger landowners who used to get one vote for each lot they owned. An acre is the equivalent of about four lots.
In the past, a large corporate landowner like National Recreational Properties Inc. could swing a landowner election by throwing its weight of more than 2,000 votes in the direction of a particular candidate, effectively giving landowners a three-seat majority on a five-member board of supervisors.
Two supervisor seats are decided by popular vote.
Many residents in Sun 'n Lake felt this was not equitable and fought for a third popularly elected seat.
Four of the five members of the district's board of supervisors agreed the county commission's decision was a violation of the equal protection cause of the Constitution and voted 4-1 to sue the county.
Supervisor Dave Halbig cast the dissenting vote. He stated he didn't think the board should use taxpayer dollars to change what, in his estimate, eight out of 10 residents in the district wanted, according to a previous report.
Supervisor George "Bud" Puffenberger was the most outspoken in favor of filing the lawsuit stating, "I have to challenge a political decision made for political expediency."
In order to avoid the lawsuit that was later filed by the district, the commission could vote this January on a new ordinance to change the number of popularly voted seats.
The county commission met with the board of supervisors and concerned citizens looking for a way to avoid litigation.
The residents have wanted a third popular seat for a long time, said Dick Miller, a Sun 'n Lake resident who ran for and lost a landowner seat election.
The commission is considering allowing voters one vote for each dollar of operation and maintenance (O&M) assessment paid to the district as a compromise solution.
For example, if a property owner paid $703 in O and M assessments to the district, they would get 703 votes. If they own two like properties they get 1,406 votes if their assessments had been paid.
The dollars they pay to the county in ad valorem taxes would not be counted for voting purposes, nor would assessments on property improvement bonds. Those with unpaid 2008 assessments would not get a vote in the next election either.
"It cancels out the density issue," said Board President Bob Severino in a previous interview. "So we're able to transfer that third seat to the people."
"The lawsuit will be resolved through this effort if it goes through," said Severino.
The next election for a landowner seat Severino holds will be held on Jan. 22.
Assuming the commission approves the ordinance at its Jan. 5 meeting, the election would be based on the operating and maintenance assessments paid up for 2008.
If the board of commissioners does not approve the ordinance, the election could be held in the manner decided by the commission in April, and the lawsuit would in all likelihood continue until a judge decides.
In an upshot, if 2009 made us all a little poorer, it also made us all cleaner and more hygiene-oriented.
It brought heartaches, joy and astonishment to Highlands County residents. It also brought closure to the family of a Florida Highway Patrol trooper ruthlessly killed while on duty.
The economy continued to roil; residents endured not one but three anthrax hoaxes; ordinary residents prodded city hall into action in Venus and Sun 'n Lake, and swine flu got us all a little closer to sanitizers.
ONE: Economic woes multiply
SEBRING The Great Recession exacerbated idleness for a second year in 2009 with falling home prices and greater unemployment, bankruptcies, foreclosures and poverty.
When 2008 dawned, Florida's unemployment rate was a healthy 4.7 percent. Only 441,000 were looking for work, and the state boasted about the 85,800 jobs added in the previous year.
In Highlands County, the unemployment rate was just 5.3 percent; our population was growing. We felt invincible.
Then, the housing-banking bubble burst. The latest numbers: sluggishness in building and trade sectors pushed local unemployment to 11.7 percent – its highest level since May 1975, when Gerald Ford was president. Florida 284,800 lost jobs.
Businesses downsized workforces. The state, the county, the cities, the court clerk, even the post office shrank. Lake Placid combined routes. The Sebring office didn't replace several workers.
Unfed masses
Among the alarming numbers were breadwinners who needed food stamps to put dinner on the table. In Highlands County, the numbers doubled in two years, from 7,785 moms, dads and kids on public assistance in December 2007 to 14,056 in November 2009. Nineteen percent of Highlands County people are now on state assistance.
"These are not the customers we saw before," said Liesta Sykes, community relations manager at the Sebring office. "They lost individual income recently due to layoffs and shutdowns."
In the inflationary economy, everything went up: milk, orange juice, peanut butter. The price of gasoline blazed from $2.60 to $4.15 in 2008, but thankfully subsided to $2.65 by the close of 2009.
By Thanksgiving, Church Service Center in Avon Park fed 700 families a month – 25 percent more than last year. In Lake Placid, Manna Ministries gave food to 480 of the poorest families in the southern half of Highlands County.
The sheer numbers of people who now beg for their food is disquieting even to food pantry directors, who see people line up every day for a handout.
"We spend most of our time making the new clients feel comfortable," said Bill Stephenson at Church Service Center in Avon Park. "They're embarrassed and ashamed about holding out their hand. Some of them won't stand in line because of their own personal pride."
Some people surrendered. By mid-year, bankruptcy filings were up 40 percent over the previous year.
"It's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better," attorney Gary Gossett predicted in April.
Some people bought guns. The recession is reportedly why the number of concealed weapon permits in Highlands shot from 15 a month in 2003 to an average of 135 a month in 2009. Three out of every 100 Floridians are permitted to pack heat — 608,000 total.
Some people lost their homes. In 2008, a record 1,181 foreclosures were recorded. About 1,500 were expected before 2009. Abandoned houses doubled the number of open code enforcement cases in Highlands County.
Some people sleep in their cars. It's a sign, economists have been saying, that unemployment has expanded into the middle class.
"It brings you up short," said Stephenson, uneasiness apparent in his voice.
Budget cuts Plummeting retail sales and land values made budgets a moving target. Lower taxes were a godsend to homeowners, but for governments, declining property values were the devil.
Property Appraiser Raymond McIntyre said local residential property values went down 15 to 20 percent. In real dollars, $9 million was taken from Highlands County's $164 million budget. Even so, local governments held the line against higher taxes.
Instead, budgets were cut. Highlands County deleted the $11.5 million line item for a new sheriff's office on George Boulevard, and 27 county employees were laid off. Court clerks were furloughed.
None was hit harder than the Highlands County building department. After the 2004 hurricanes and the speculative housing tsunami of 2005, S.Y. Moseley Jr.'s office nailed a respectable $1.36 million in revenues.
Until 2007. "It was like somebody shut off the water valve," Moseley said. Income deconstructed to $400,000 in 2009. The number of clerks and inspectors shrank from 14 to seven.
Tourism and immigration were affected. Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew Hispanic Center, non-partisan researcher told USA Today for a July 21 story that 30 to 50 percent fewer Mexicans came to the U.S. — legally or illegally — in 2008, compared with 2006.
That leaves citrus growers like Ben Albritton wondering if there will be enough pickers.
"It's too early to tell," Albritton said. "We'll know after the first of the year."
Even so, Florida grew. Despite an exodus of nearly 32,000 residents to other states, Florida's population rose by 114,091 during the year ending July 1, 2009. One reason: an influx of 87,381 international immigrants and a natural increase of 58,169 as births outnumbered deaths for the year, the Census Bureau said.
Recession mode
Conversely, RV parks and fishing resorts are doing well in a poor economy. Snowbirds ignored the 50 percent freefall in their stock market-based IRAs, and made winter reservations in Highlands County.
"My park is already full for next year," Mary Cassidy in April. She and her husband, Edward, manage Whispering Pines Village on Brunns Road, a few blocks south of Lakeshore Mall.
People coped. Restaurants tempted customers with sweet deals. McDonald's Wendy's, Denny's, Burger King, Arby's, DQ, Subway, Red Lobster, Captain D's — all offered recession specials.
At Woody's Bar-B-Q, there are seven luncheon specials. Nearly every customer who walks in will order one. Said general manager Rodney Horton, "It's helped tremendously."
Commissioners hoped to spur a new building boom, and suspended impact fees in July. It's impossible to know whether the moratorium helped or the economy improved, but by December, permits were up to two a week.
TWO: Residents scramble to fight swine flu
SEBRING In recent years, no illness stirred up as much talk and worry among people locally like the swine flu.
Whether the vaccines were safe, who should get them, when they would arrive and if it was safe to keep our children in schools, were just some of the concerns of residents.
The swine flu hit the United States in April, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They listed the most vulnerable groups as children under 5 years, the elderly and pregnant women.
Highlands County had its first confirmed case of swine flu on May 20, when a 4-year-old boy tested positive for H1N1.
Four months later, the county's first and only confirmed swine flu death was 14-year-old Marquis Hamilton. Hamilton's symptoms seemed to have developed overnight.
The junior varsity football player had complained of fever and stomach aches. The next day, Sept. 11, he died in Highlands Regional Medical Center.
The county also is awaiting confirmation by the medical examiner's office on a 60-year-old man who died and tested positive for H1N1.
Tom Moran, Highlands County Health Department official, said the cause of death has not been confirmed but they should be receiving a final report in about three weeks.
According to Moran, the county began requesting vaccines in October but short supplies by the manufacturer led to delays nationwide.
Like other county health departments, they received and distributed them to local doctors and clinics in small allotments to the higher risk groups.
"It took longer than expected. We had to cancel the first clinics because we didn't have the vaccines," Moran said.
The first clinic was opened in November for the higher risk groups. When more shipments of vaccines arrived, they opened it to the general public.
An estimated 5,249 people were administered the vaccine in Highlands County. The health department said that's 31 percent of the vaccines exported to the county.
THREE: County faces not one, but three anthrax hoaxes
SEBRING Highlands County was not the anthrax hoax capital of the United States, but in 2009, it sure felt that way.
There were three such hoaxes this year and each one kept residents on their toes, but none more so than the first.
On April 2, a nurse at Florida Hospital Heartland Division found an envelope under the windshield wiper of her vehicle at 2 a.m. Inside was a white substance and a note indicating it was anthrax.
The hospital was put on lockdown and remained that way for more than 12 hours. As the day progressed, more envelopes were found in the mailboxes of Sun 'n Lake residents and in the neighborhood east of U.S. 27 across from Sun 'n Lake.
Local, state and federal agencies ended up recovering around 80 envelopes, with 48 of them on windshields at the hospital. The substance tested negative for anthrax.
Jerron Mario Moffitt, 21, was charged with 76 counts of possession of a hoax weapon of mass destruction in connection with the hoax. He is next scheduled for a Jan. 20 pretrial conference.
A co-defendant, Cele Pete Carmona, 20, pleaded no contest to one count of possession of a hoax weapon of mass destruction. Per the agreement, he was placed on five years probation and must complete 100 hours of community service.
The second hoax came in July, when the Highlands County Sheriff's Office was evacuated after two envelopes containing a suspicious white powder arrived in the mail.
Approximately 40 employees were evacuated from the first and second floors shortly after the envelopes arrived. Again, the powder tested negative and a suspect, Cally-Jo Richardson, was arrested in connection with the hoax.
Finally, in October, a hazardous materials team was sent to the Lakeshore Mall movie theater around 8:30 p.m. after another mysterious white powder was found inside a roll of quarters.
The theaters were evacuated and the substance was sent to Tampa for testing and came back negative for the presence of anthrax or some other biochemical.
No arrests were made and no investigation was started.
FOUR: Sottile's murderer gets death
BARTOW Polk County Judge J. Michael Hunter formally sentenced Joshua Lee Altersberger to death in June for the Jan. 12, 2007 killing of Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Nicholas Sottile.
Altersberger pleaded guilty March 13 to shooting Sottile during a Highlands County traffic stop. On April 2, a Polk County jury recommended on a 9-3 vote that the defendant receive the death penalty.
His guilty plea came three days before jury selection was to begin in his trial. A panel of 12 was still chosen to hear testimony before deciding whether Altersberger should receive life or death.
Over four days of testimony, victim impact statements and comments from family members in late March and early April, much was learned about the two men whose paths crossed tragically on that day in January 2007.
Sottile was described as a man dedicated to his friends, colleagues and family.
"My dad was all about our family," said daughter Heather Sottile, when giving her victim impact statement.
Altersberger's home life was in direct contrast to Sottile's. He was born under tragic circumstances, the result of his mother being raped by a man she called her friend.
When the recommendation was read, Rosalie Altersberger, the defendant's mother, sat in the audience and grasped the hand of her youngest daughter.
Altersberger's case is continuing through the Polk County court system. At his formal sentencing, his attorney told Hunter he wished to withdraw from the plea by claiming bad advice that led to his pleading guilty.
The case has since been continued.
FIVE: Former AP officer charged in toddler's death
AVON PARK Former Avon Park Police Officer James Parker was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in connection with the death of 22-month-old Kaedyn Short.
On March 29, Parker, then 32, and on the Avon Park Police force, was reportedly watching the child while her mother, Jennifer Short, was at work.
Parker and Short brought the child to the Highlands Regional Medical Center emergency room on March 29. Doctors told authorities that the toddler suffered several
skull fractures and had multiple bruises over her body.
The child was transferred to All Children's Hospital, St. Petersburg and died May 27 in a hospice home.
The former officer entered a not guilty plea on July 27 to the charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.
At Parker's Dec. 10 pretrial conference, a continuance was granted with the next court date set for March 18.
Jennifer Short, 28, was indicted in June on felony counts of failure to report child abuse and neglect of a child causing great bodily harm.
Also in June, Sara J. Vasquez, 25, of Zolfo Springs and Linda L. Payne, 39, of Sebring, were both indicted for misdemeanor failure to report child abuse. The two worked at the daycare Kaedyn Short attended, according to the Highlands County Sheriff's Office.
SIX: Sheriff's office gets new digs
SEBRING Some personnel with the Highlands County Sheriff's Office got new digs this year at a spanking new building at Liberty Star Plaza, on the corner of South George Boulevard and U.S. 27.
Citing the tough economy, county commissioners put the kibosh on plans for a new $11 million building that was to go up just a few hundred yards away from Liberty Star Plaza.
The new building encompasses about 9,000 square feet, with an additional 2,000 square feet for storage, according to a prior report.
It holds the sheriff's criminal investigations unit, patrol deputies, special investigations unit, crime scene investigators, detectives and their secretaries, about 110 people.
By the way, the star was on the new plaza building long before the sheriff's move, and is just there by a nice coincidence, said Lisa Burley, the sheriff's chief of staff.
"I think it's working out well," said Burley on Monday. "We've had a lot of positive comments from the public about the location. They like the visibility and access and our troops seem to really like it, too. So we're making the best of bad situation. That's a pretty good outcome."
The search for a new space had been ongoing for several months.
In July, Sheriff Susan Benton told the commissioners she was interested in renting the first floor of the three-story Sun Trust Bank building in downtown Sebring.
That move could have cost about $2.5 million more for renovating and equipping the building to meet the sheriff's needs. The Liberty building needed $261,000 to complete, a previous report stated.
Burley said the smelly old section where much of the sheriff's staff was moved from is scheduled to be checked out by an engineering firm for an "indoor environmental quality evaluation" to take samples for airborne microbes.
There have been problems in the outdated building with the sickening aroma of sewage and possibly mold.
The old building still houses records, civil, warrants, 911, information technology, legal, internal affairs, and administration.
Plans remain to invest $1.3 million in the old building, "just to keep us functional," said Burley, as well as plans to spend $400,000 in the Emergency Operations Center for a secondary 911 backup system.
SEVEN: Commissioners veto Eagle war games plan
SEBRING The battle over the Eagle National Security Training Center started July 17, 2008 when Seth Ellis showed up at a Highlands County commissioners meeting, asking for expedited approval to build on the 7,696-acre Southern Farms.
Hoping for 250 jobs, the commissioners initially approved the request. It was sailing through the process until August, when environmentalists and residents of the Venus community finally heard about it. Two residents hadn't been legally notified, so the notification and permitting process started again.
Word was passed in the community. Eagle wanted a 6,000-foot runway, a rifle and pistol range, machine guns, a shoot house, buildings half the size of Lakeshore Mall, up to 1,000 students, and 250-foot-tall training towers.
A year after the project was proposed, more than a dozen angry residents came to Planning and Zoning meeting and made their opposition known.
Then, on Sept. 24, 200 opponents gathered at Venus Community Center. They hoped for answers from Bert Harris III, the attorney for Greg Eagle, a Cape Coral real estate developer who wanted to spend $425 million to build the facility. Harris and Ron Grigsby, the owner of Southern Farms, refused to speak.
At two commission meetings, Venus residents filled the Highlands County Government Center auditorium and convinced the commissioners, who voted 5-0 and killed the project.
At the November hearing, Grigsby said Eagle – who lost several million on 2009 real estate deals – was now only peripherally involved.
Grigsby is appealing. Administrative law Judge J. Lawrence Johnston in Tallahassee has given the county, the Department of Community Affairs and Southern Farms until Jan. 5 to decide on a stipulated settlement agreement, even though the county commissioners have already voted against the deal.
EIGHT: Stimulus money keeps some school jobs afloat
SEBRING Last year, the School Board of Highlands County cut about 67 teaching positions. This year, another 65 were cut, the casualty of declining enrollment and state funding cuts.
It could have been worse without federal stimulus money. Sixty-nine regular teaching positions and 25 exceptional student education teaching slots were saved with these dollars.
But the stimulus money covers a two-year period, after which funding from another source will be needed to pay the 31 physical education teachers, 18 music/band/chorus teachers, three high school art teachers and 17 media specialists, among others.
By changing to a common planning schedule in the middle and high schools, the district cut 42 teaching positions, but teachers quickly expressed their dissatisfaction with what they described as a stressful schedule.
At a September school board meting, Avon Park Middle School teacher Sandra York said, "The stress level is unreal. I teach non-stop like everybody else does."
The tough budget climate also led to an impasse in the contract negotiations between the district and the teacher and school support unions.
At separate impasse hearings in October, the school board, sitting as a special legislative body, ruled in favor of the district's position of freezing pay raises.
After years of increasing student enrollment through the 2006-07 school year, the district's enrollment is down again this year by about 120 to 130 students compared to last year.
NINE: Real Estate sales perk up – somewhat
SEBRING After two years of being in the doldrums, real estate sales saw a ray of light this year, fueled, in part, by low home prices, low interest rates and the extended first-time home buyer tax credit program.
The tightening credit market meant that home loans got harder to come by and buyers generally had to plonk down more in downpayment, but foreclosures and short sales drove down home prices to new lows.
As of Dec. 22, the total number of homes sold this year in Highlands County was 1,109, compared to 935 in 2008, an increase of 19 percent.
The news was encouraging in the rest of the state, too. Florida Realtors reported that home sales statewide increased 61 percent in November compared to the year before. In Highlands County, Steve Fruit, RE/MAX Realty Plus II broker associate, estimated that November sales increased about 29 percent compared to 2008.
The federal government extended the homebuyer assistance program from Nov. 30 deadline to April 30.
Besides a credit of up to $8,000 for first-time buyers, Congress also expanded the program to include homeowners who have lived in their current properties for at least five years. They can now claim a tax credit of up to $6,500 if they relocate.
TEN: Sun 'n Lakes voting method changes
SEBRING In early April, the Highlands County Board of County Commissioners voted to change the voting rules for landowner elections in the Sun 'n Lake of Sebring Improvement District by reducing the voting power of large landowners.
Under the new rules, each landowner with an acre or less would receive one vote.
This reduced by three quarters the voting power of larger landowners who used to get one vote for each lot they owned. An acre is the equivalent of about four lots.
In the past, a large corporate landowner like National Recreational Properties Inc. could swing a landowner election by throwing its weight of more than 2,000 votes in the direction of a particular candidate, effectively giving landowners a three-seat majority on a five-member board of supervisors.
Two supervisor seats are decided by popular vote.
Many residents in Sun 'n Lake felt this was not equitable and fought for a third popularly elected seat.
Four of the five members of the district's board of supervisors agreed the county commission's decision was a violation of the equal protection cause of the Constitution and voted 4-1 to sue the county.
Supervisor Dave Halbig cast the dissenting vote. He stated he didn't think the board should use taxpayer dollars to change what, in his estimate, eight out of 10 residents in the district wanted, according to a previous report.
Supervisor George "Bud" Puffenberger was the most outspoken in favor of filing the lawsuit stating, "I have to challenge a political decision made for political expediency."
In order to avoid the lawsuit that was later filed by the district, the commission could vote this January on a new ordinance to change the number of popularly voted seats.
The county commission met with the board of supervisors and concerned citizens looking for a way to avoid litigation.
The residents have wanted a third popular seat for a long time, said Dick Miller, a Sun 'n Lake resident who ran for and lost a landowner seat election.
The commission is considering allowing voters one vote for each dollar of operation and maintenance (O&M) assessment paid to the district as a compromise solution.
For example, if a property owner paid $703 in O and M assessments to the district, they would get 703 votes. If they own two like properties they get 1,406 votes if their assessments had been paid.
The dollars they pay to the county in ad valorem taxes would not be counted for voting purposes, nor would assessments on property improvement bonds. Those with unpaid 2008 assessments would not get a vote in the next election either.
"It cancels out the density issue," said Board President Bob Severino in a previous interview. "So we're able to transfer that third seat to the people."
"The lawsuit will be resolved through this effort if it goes through," said Severino.
The next election for a landowner seat Severino holds will be held on Jan. 22.
Assuming the commission approves the ordinance at its Jan. 5 meeting, the election would be based on the operating and maintenance assessments paid up for 2008.
If the board of commissioners does not approve the ordinance, the election could be held in the manner decided by the commission in April, and the lawsuit would in all likelihood continue until a judge decides.
Putnam inmate shot, killed as he climbed jail fence
By Lise Fisher
Staff writer
Published: Wednesday, August 5, 2009 at 12:34 p.m.
An attempted escape at the Putnam County jail ended in death Wednesday morning when an officer shot the inmate who later died, deputies reported.
The inmate, Michael A. Campbell, 31, was pronounced dead shortly after 10 a.m. at an area hospital, according to the Putnam County Sheriff's Office.
The incident occurred at about 9:35 a.m.
Campbell climbed a perimeter containment fence while in the jail's recreation yard. A corrections deputy repeatedly warned Campbell to stop, the Sheriff's Office reported. But, officers said, Campbell jumped to the top of the fence and tried to flee on foot.
A deputy, armed with a shotgun, shot Campbell one time as he tried to escape, according to the Sheriff's Office.
Campbell was taken to the Putnam Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Campbell was a Florida Department of Corrections inmate and had been sentenced in 2003 on charges out of Putnam County for kidnapping, aggravated assault, possession of cocaine and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, according to information from DOC. He was being temporarily held at the Putnam County jail to make a court appearance at a child custody hearing, according to the Sheriff's Office. Campbell's release date from prison was set for December 2012.
Putnam County Sheriff Jeff Hardy is requesting that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conduct an investigation into Campbell's death.
Currently FDLE, the Homicide Investigative Unit with the State Attorney's Office and the Medical Examiner's Office are conducting ongoing investigations into the incident.
This is the second escape or attempted escape at the Putnam County jail in five months.
Personnel lapses at the jail were blamed earlier this year for a jail escape in mid-April during which two inmates got out of the facility. The pair were later captured and charged with killing a retiree, a relative of one of the escapees, after they broke out of the jail. The men now are facing the death penalty.
Staff writer
Published: Wednesday, August 5, 2009 at 12:34 p.m.
An attempted escape at the Putnam County jail ended in death Wednesday morning when an officer shot the inmate who later died, deputies reported.
The inmate, Michael A. Campbell, 31, was pronounced dead shortly after 10 a.m. at an area hospital, according to the Putnam County Sheriff's Office.
The incident occurred at about 9:35 a.m.
Campbell climbed a perimeter containment fence while in the jail's recreation yard. A corrections deputy repeatedly warned Campbell to stop, the Sheriff's Office reported. But, officers said, Campbell jumped to the top of the fence and tried to flee on foot.
A deputy, armed with a shotgun, shot Campbell one time as he tried to escape, according to the Sheriff's Office.
Campbell was taken to the Putnam Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Campbell was a Florida Department of Corrections inmate and had been sentenced in 2003 on charges out of Putnam County for kidnapping, aggravated assault, possession of cocaine and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, according to information from DOC. He was being temporarily held at the Putnam County jail to make a court appearance at a child custody hearing, according to the Sheriff's Office. Campbell's release date from prison was set for December 2012.
Putnam County Sheriff Jeff Hardy is requesting that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conduct an investigation into Campbell's death.
Currently FDLE, the Homicide Investigative Unit with the State Attorney's Office and the Medical Examiner's Office are conducting ongoing investigations into the incident.
This is the second escape or attempted escape at the Putnam County jail in five months.
Personnel lapses at the jail were blamed earlier this year for a jail escape in mid-April during which two inmates got out of the facility. The pair were later captured and charged with killing a retiree, a relative of one of the escapees, after they broke out of the jail. The men now are facing the death penalty.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
7 inmates in west Fla. jail have swine flu
The Associated Press
Published: Friday, July 31, 2009 at 12:59 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 31, 2009 at 1:04 p.m.
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Seven inmates have tested positive for the swine flu at a west Florida jail.
Pinellas County jail officials say they got the positive test results Thursday.
The seven who tested positive were among 32 inmates who had flu-like symptoms and were isolated from the general population at one time or another.
Nonessential activities and movement among pods at the jail in Clearwater were canceled as of Wednesday.
Staff members in housing areas are wearing masks and gloves as a precaution.
Earlier this week, 3 Collier County jail inmates were tested positive for swine flu. Four others were treated with flu-like symptoms.
Published: Friday, July 31, 2009 at 12:59 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, July 31, 2009 at 1:04 p.m.
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Seven inmates have tested positive for the swine flu at a west Florida jail.
Pinellas County jail officials say they got the positive test results Thursday.
The seven who tested positive were among 32 inmates who had flu-like symptoms and were isolated from the general population at one time or another.
Nonessential activities and movement among pods at the jail in Clearwater were canceled as of Wednesday.
Staff members in housing areas are wearing masks and gloves as a precaution.
Earlier this week, 3 Collier County jail inmates were tested positive for swine flu. Four others were treated with flu-like symptoms.
Florida Jail Fires Officer for Being KKK Member
Thursday, December 31, 2009
GAINESVILLE, Florida — A county jailer in Florida has been fired after telling investigators he was an officer of the Ku Klux Klan.
An internal affairs report by the Alachua County Sheriff's Office says Detention Officer Wayne Kerschner defended the KKK as a faith-based organization.
Kerschner told investigators that he blogged on a KKK Web site, attended a rally in Tennesseeand paid dues to the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He said his wife was also a member.
Kerschner was fired Wednesday for violating a department ban on subversive or terrorist organizations. The KKK promotes the interests of white Americans, often with violence and intimidation.
He had worked four years at the jail in Gainesville. A phone number for Kerschner could not be found Thursday.
The investigation started after a tip from a sheriff's deputy working on an FBI investigation.
GAINESVILLE, Florida — A county jailer in Florida has been fired after telling investigators he was an officer of the Ku Klux Klan.
An internal affairs report by the Alachua County Sheriff's Office says Detention Officer Wayne Kerschner defended the KKK as a faith-based organization.
Kerschner told investigators that he blogged on a KKK Web site, attended a rally in Tennesseeand paid dues to the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. He said his wife was also a member.
Kerschner was fired Wednesday for violating a department ban on subversive or terrorist organizations. The KKK promotes the interests of white Americans, often with violence and intimidation.
He had worked four years at the jail in Gainesville. A phone number for Kerschner could not be found Thursday.
The investigation started after a tip from a sheriff's deputy working on an FBI investigation.
William Dillon TV special airs today
FLORIDA TODAY
“Lifetime Lost: William Dillon’s 27-Year Fight for Freedom” airs at 7 p.m. today on WBCC-TV, BrightHouse Channel 5, or DirecTV channel 68.
FLORIDA TODAY spent the past year with the Brevard County man and others to produce the 45-minute documentary detailing his wrongful incarceration and release.
Dillon talks about how he came to spend almost three decades in prison, and his life there and since.
The program will air at additional times in January.
A special report appeared Dec. 27-28 in the newspaper and is available online, with the documentary, at www.floridatoday.com/dillon.
“Lifetime Lost: William Dillon’s 27-Year Fight for Freedom” airs at 7 p.m. today on WBCC-TV, BrightHouse Channel 5, or DirecTV channel 68.
FLORIDA TODAY spent the past year with the Brevard County man and others to produce the 45-minute documentary detailing his wrongful incarceration and release.
Dillon talks about how he came to spend almost three decades in prison, and his life there and since.
The program will air at additional times in January.
A special report appeared Dec. 27-28 in the newspaper and is available online, with the documentary, at www.floridatoday.com/dillon.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
A lifetime lost: William Dillon's 27-year fight for freedom
BY JOHN A. TORRES
FLORIDA TODAY
Eight months away from his 50th birthday, William Dillon took a deep breath, a free man for the first time since he was 21.
Outside the Brevard County Detention Center, he saw his mother and adopted father, brothers and sister. They hugged and pushed forward nieces and nephews he had never met. He shook hands with other strangers.
Then he saw Wilton Dedge, who also spent more than two decades in prison before DNA testing overturned his conviction.
They embraced, kindred spirits brought together by the nightmare of wrongful incarceration and the elation of freedom because of advances in technology.
"Now I know this is magical," Dillon said on Nov. 14, 2008, the day of his release and less than a month before prosecutors dropped all charges against him in the 1981 beating death of James Dvorak at Canova Beach.
Dillon rehearsed that moment of freedom many times in his head, he said later, after agreeing to work with FLORIDA TODAY on this special report and a video documentary about his experience during and after his time in prison.
He said the lightning-quick reality of release was almost too much.
"I don't think anyone can imagine coming out of prison after 27 years and seeing freedom," he said. "It's like having a death sentence of cancer and God just healing you right in that moment.
"It's got to be the same thing. In reality, I was dead, and he brought me right back to life."
That day, Dillon held on to family for support as he walked toward freedom. A barricade of television cameras and microphones, photographers and reporters stopped him.
They asked about bitterness and animosity over the life sentence he received after his conviction in Dvorak's death -- a conviction set aside by DNA evidence that showed he had no connection to a shirt prosecutors said was worn by the killer.
"I settled that anger in my heart about 12 years ago. God settled it in me," he said slowly. "If I didn't make that choice, I don't think I would be here right now.
"And this is something that I thought about and dreamed about for years and years and years."
Horrors begin
On March 18, 1982, Dillon stepped from a van and looked out on "The Rock," Florida's oldest state prison. He said his heart was full of hate as he began his sentence for Dvorak's death.
He ignored a lieutenant who encouraged him to first go into protective custody.
"They are not right in there," the officer warned Dillon about inmates in the "general population." "They are animals, and they will eat you alive."
The other seven prisoners transported with Dillon accepted the offer, but he was led to his permanent cell.
He described "madness" all around -- yells and taunts, foul odors. No one seemed to be in charge, and he was afraid.
Moments later, five men barged into Dillon's cell. Three held him down, while two beat and raped him.
"I tried to battle as best as I could, but really, it was a no-win situation for me," Dillon said.
A prison guard found him bleeding from the face and buttocks. Other guards were called in.
"What happened? Who did this to you?" they asked him.
"I don't know who. I don't know why," he answered, believing his silence would make him safer.
In that moment, Dillon said, he lost who he was and became someone else.
"I'm falling deeper into a mental state, so now my life value, I feel, is worthless," he said of how he felt that day. "I want to go to sleep, and I don't want to wake up."
The lieutenant came into the cell and shook his head, Dillon recounted. "I told you so," the man said.
Reality sets in
The rapes and torments continued. On Christmas Day 1982, Dillon said, he started to feel the full weight of his despair.
"That Christmas right there was . . . the one that told me that I would never be able to share anything again with my family," he recalled. "No emotion, no family hugs, no Christmas, no celebrations, no cheer."
Visits from family eventually slowed down. When they did visit or talk on the phone, Dillon could see the questions in their eyes and hear it in their voices.
"Maybe you did it, but you didn't know it," they said. "Maybe you were drunk or on drugs."
Dillon first drew attention from investigators when police found him smoking marijuana in his brother's car near the murder scene at Canova Beach. It was only a few days after Dvorak's body was found.
"I never did anything in my life that I didn't know I did," he told his family, trying to understand how his wild lifestyle had left the door open for their hesitation. "I was going to bars and partying. I was having a good time."
Dillon had graduated from high school in North Dakota before moving to Florida. He served in the Army, then worked on and off in construction.
"It wasn't the kind of lifestyle my parents wanted for me," he said.
When Dillon was transferred to other prisons, he carried the reputation of a rape victim who would not report attacks.
He was filled with rage but said he held on to "secret hope" that sustained him through the years: "When you go to sleep at night, you hope that something will happen in your case and that tomorrow will bring some paperwork that says we made a mistake or that the judge is going to retry you or the lawyer is working on newly discovered evidence.
"Or the fact that whoever actually did the crime will confess to it. That seems almost laughable in a sense, but you'd be surprised how strong that is within you."
The life sentence
Over the years, Dillon worked a variety of prison jobs. The tiny paychecks -- he made 15 cents an hour -- or a letter from home gave him rare moments of happiness.
Slowly, he realized that his adopted father, Joe Dillon -- his dad since the age of 1 -- was the only person writing to encourage him. Joe also was depositing small sums of money in his prison account for him to buy snacks, sodas and cigarettes.
"He began to show me more and more the compassion of a man who was trying to love his son," said Dillon, adding that he started to feel shame for never loving Joe the way he could have. For causing trouble and making life harder for the man who would not give up on him.
Joe said his mission was to keep his son's spirits from falling too low. In addition to money and letters, there were periodic phone calls from Joe and Dillon's mother, Amy.
"We'd try to have a little bit of happiness in the conversations on the telephone, something good instead of just something bad whenever we spoke to him," Joe said. "I knew he should have been a free man."
Time stands still
During Dillon's second decade in Florida prisons, he started picking fights, thinking fury was key to his survival.
"I was on a one-way ticket to straight anger and frustration and trying to make them kill me," Dillon said. "I never said it out loud, but I wanted them to kill me."
The rage subsided whenever his younger brother, also named Joe, visited.
"Joe used to come and see me, and I just enjoyed the love and the talks and the camaraderie," Dillon said. "I enjoyed it. But I saw the blossom in my brother that made me want to look and see what it was."
After a visit by the "praise and worship band" from Joe's church, Dillon said he started to believe there might be another path besides anger. He started asking Joe to explain certain Scriptures. He started to feel a sense of peace.
"One day, I was sitting in my cell, and the shadows had come down on the room," he recalled. "I started to hear something start saying it was time. I was sitting there and was amazed.
"I couldn't understand it. Was it in my head? From that moment on, I started going to church, and I started to listen to what was being said. I began to comprehend the act of faith. I let faith seep into me. I let belief seep into me.
"And with belief and faith there together, God freed me."
Last chance
It was summer 2006 when details of the Dedge case started to reach Dillon, then serving his 25th year. It was more than two years after Dedge, also from Brevard, was cleared of rape through DNA testing and released after 22 years in prison.
Dillon said he grew excited as he learned of similarities to his case: testimony from the same expert witness who later was discredited, the use of a jailhouse informant and unreliable witnesses.
Dillon wrote letters to law school professors seeking help, as well as to the Innocence Project in New York. He wasn't certain there was evidence left from his case that could be tested for DNA.
"Professor, please excuse me for my rude interruption into your life," one letter began. "My name is William Dillon, and I have been imprisoned since 1981 for a crime I had nothing at all to do with. . . . I need someone to take an interest in this case. I'm not wasting your time."
He got no response.
Facing a statutory time limit to file a motion for DNA testing, Dillon wrote his own motion, with the help of other inmates and the prison library.
"I prayed that God would show me how to file the motion," he said. It took him seven days to compose.
On June 6, 2006, Dillon mailed it to the Brevard County Clerk of the Court.
Unbelievable news
Dillon was shocked in October 2006 when a Brevard circuit judge ordered the state to respond to his petition for DNA testing of evidence.
The same prosecutor's office that sent him to prison called the motion "frivolous" and vowed to fight.
Dillon was taken to Brevard for a hearing.
"I don't even know that there is any evidence," Dillon said. "I'm just filing this motion, hoping that there is."
Assistant Public Defender Mike Pirolo was assigned to the case. Pirolo soon learned that the Innocence Project -- a national litigation and public policy organization that, according to its Web site, is "dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system" -- wanted to help.
The Innocence Project had been instrumental in the exoneration of Dedge.
Pirolo said he knows many of his clients are guilty. But he felt different after meeting Dillon.
"It didn't feel like (Dillon) was trying to make things up," said Pirolo, who was only 2-years-old when Dillon was first arrested. "It was just one of those rare occasions when I just looked at a guy and instantly said, 'I believe him,' right from Day 1."
Penning a song
Months of waiting and hearings followed.
Music had become Dillon's escape. He taught himself to play the guitar, getting pointers from other inmates.
In June 2008, he wrote a song to capture what he'd been through. It is an angry yet soulful country ballad; he strums and sings in a smooth, sorrowful voice:
Black robes and lawyers, justice served it will be done.
Black robes and lawyers, Lady Justice lost her one.
I was taken by the lords of justice, cast away as a stone.
Left to rot in their dungeons for the murder of a man I don't know.
You committed a crime, you'll pay for that, don't you know that it's a fact.
A fact you know well, your freedom's shamed.
In the prison yard, a stone bares your name, bares your name.
One month later, he learned that the DNA test might open the prison gates for him -- nearly two years after a judge granted his motion for the testing. His lawyers told him the results showed he couldn't have worn the T-shirt linked to the crime.
"I feel completely exhilarated to the point where I have to hold myself in check," he said in a prison interview with FLORIDA TODAY before the state ordered his release in November 2008. "But I see it, I really see it happening. I hold myself in tight, and I'm at peace with whatever happens.
"I've waited a long, long time for this."
Contact Torres at 242-3649 or jtorres@floridatoday.com
FLORIDA TODAY
Eight months away from his 50th birthday, William Dillon took a deep breath, a free man for the first time since he was 21.
Outside the Brevard County Detention Center, he saw his mother and adopted father, brothers and sister. They hugged and pushed forward nieces and nephews he had never met. He shook hands with other strangers.
Then he saw Wilton Dedge, who also spent more than two decades in prison before DNA testing overturned his conviction.
They embraced, kindred spirits brought together by the nightmare of wrongful incarceration and the elation of freedom because of advances in technology.
"Now I know this is magical," Dillon said on Nov. 14, 2008, the day of his release and less than a month before prosecutors dropped all charges against him in the 1981 beating death of James Dvorak at Canova Beach.
Dillon rehearsed that moment of freedom many times in his head, he said later, after agreeing to work with FLORIDA TODAY on this special report and a video documentary about his experience during and after his time in prison.
He said the lightning-quick reality of release was almost too much.
"I don't think anyone can imagine coming out of prison after 27 years and seeing freedom," he said. "It's like having a death sentence of cancer and God just healing you right in that moment.
"It's got to be the same thing. In reality, I was dead, and he brought me right back to life."
That day, Dillon held on to family for support as he walked toward freedom. A barricade of television cameras and microphones, photographers and reporters stopped him.
They asked about bitterness and animosity over the life sentence he received after his conviction in Dvorak's death -- a conviction set aside by DNA evidence that showed he had no connection to a shirt prosecutors said was worn by the killer.
"I settled that anger in my heart about 12 years ago. God settled it in me," he said slowly. "If I didn't make that choice, I don't think I would be here right now.
"And this is something that I thought about and dreamed about for years and years and years."
Horrors begin
On March 18, 1982, Dillon stepped from a van and looked out on "The Rock," Florida's oldest state prison. He said his heart was full of hate as he began his sentence for Dvorak's death.
He ignored a lieutenant who encouraged him to first go into protective custody.
"They are not right in there," the officer warned Dillon about inmates in the "general population." "They are animals, and they will eat you alive."
The other seven prisoners transported with Dillon accepted the offer, but he was led to his permanent cell.
He described "madness" all around -- yells and taunts, foul odors. No one seemed to be in charge, and he was afraid.
Moments later, five men barged into Dillon's cell. Three held him down, while two beat and raped him.
"I tried to battle as best as I could, but really, it was a no-win situation for me," Dillon said.
A prison guard found him bleeding from the face and buttocks. Other guards were called in.
"What happened? Who did this to you?" they asked him.
"I don't know who. I don't know why," he answered, believing his silence would make him safer.
In that moment, Dillon said, he lost who he was and became someone else.
"I'm falling deeper into a mental state, so now my life value, I feel, is worthless," he said of how he felt that day. "I want to go to sleep, and I don't want to wake up."
The lieutenant came into the cell and shook his head, Dillon recounted. "I told you so," the man said.
Reality sets in
The rapes and torments continued. On Christmas Day 1982, Dillon said, he started to feel the full weight of his despair.
"That Christmas right there was . . . the one that told me that I would never be able to share anything again with my family," he recalled. "No emotion, no family hugs, no Christmas, no celebrations, no cheer."
Visits from family eventually slowed down. When they did visit or talk on the phone, Dillon could see the questions in their eyes and hear it in their voices.
"Maybe you did it, but you didn't know it," they said. "Maybe you were drunk or on drugs."
Dillon first drew attention from investigators when police found him smoking marijuana in his brother's car near the murder scene at Canova Beach. It was only a few days after Dvorak's body was found.
"I never did anything in my life that I didn't know I did," he told his family, trying to understand how his wild lifestyle had left the door open for their hesitation. "I was going to bars and partying. I was having a good time."
Dillon had graduated from high school in North Dakota before moving to Florida. He served in the Army, then worked on and off in construction.
"It wasn't the kind of lifestyle my parents wanted for me," he said.
When Dillon was transferred to other prisons, he carried the reputation of a rape victim who would not report attacks.
He was filled with rage but said he held on to "secret hope" that sustained him through the years: "When you go to sleep at night, you hope that something will happen in your case and that tomorrow will bring some paperwork that says we made a mistake or that the judge is going to retry you or the lawyer is working on newly discovered evidence.
"Or the fact that whoever actually did the crime will confess to it. That seems almost laughable in a sense, but you'd be surprised how strong that is within you."
The life sentence
Over the years, Dillon worked a variety of prison jobs. The tiny paychecks -- he made 15 cents an hour -- or a letter from home gave him rare moments of happiness.
Slowly, he realized that his adopted father, Joe Dillon -- his dad since the age of 1 -- was the only person writing to encourage him. Joe also was depositing small sums of money in his prison account for him to buy snacks, sodas and cigarettes.
"He began to show me more and more the compassion of a man who was trying to love his son," said Dillon, adding that he started to feel shame for never loving Joe the way he could have. For causing trouble and making life harder for the man who would not give up on him.
Joe said his mission was to keep his son's spirits from falling too low. In addition to money and letters, there were periodic phone calls from Joe and Dillon's mother, Amy.
"We'd try to have a little bit of happiness in the conversations on the telephone, something good instead of just something bad whenever we spoke to him," Joe said. "I knew he should have been a free man."
Time stands still
During Dillon's second decade in Florida prisons, he started picking fights, thinking fury was key to his survival.
"I was on a one-way ticket to straight anger and frustration and trying to make them kill me," Dillon said. "I never said it out loud, but I wanted them to kill me."
The rage subsided whenever his younger brother, also named Joe, visited.
"Joe used to come and see me, and I just enjoyed the love and the talks and the camaraderie," Dillon said. "I enjoyed it. But I saw the blossom in my brother that made me want to look and see what it was."
After a visit by the "praise and worship band" from Joe's church, Dillon said he started to believe there might be another path besides anger. He started asking Joe to explain certain Scriptures. He started to feel a sense of peace.
"One day, I was sitting in my cell, and the shadows had come down on the room," he recalled. "I started to hear something start saying it was time. I was sitting there and was amazed.
"I couldn't understand it. Was it in my head? From that moment on, I started going to church, and I started to listen to what was being said. I began to comprehend the act of faith. I let faith seep into me. I let belief seep into me.
"And with belief and faith there together, God freed me."
Last chance
It was summer 2006 when details of the Dedge case started to reach Dillon, then serving his 25th year. It was more than two years after Dedge, also from Brevard, was cleared of rape through DNA testing and released after 22 years in prison.
Dillon said he grew excited as he learned of similarities to his case: testimony from the same expert witness who later was discredited, the use of a jailhouse informant and unreliable witnesses.
Dillon wrote letters to law school professors seeking help, as well as to the Innocence Project in New York. He wasn't certain there was evidence left from his case that could be tested for DNA.
"Professor, please excuse me for my rude interruption into your life," one letter began. "My name is William Dillon, and I have been imprisoned since 1981 for a crime I had nothing at all to do with. . . . I need someone to take an interest in this case. I'm not wasting your time."
He got no response.
Facing a statutory time limit to file a motion for DNA testing, Dillon wrote his own motion, with the help of other inmates and the prison library.
"I prayed that God would show me how to file the motion," he said. It took him seven days to compose.
On June 6, 2006, Dillon mailed it to the Brevard County Clerk of the Court.
Unbelievable news
Dillon was shocked in October 2006 when a Brevard circuit judge ordered the state to respond to his petition for DNA testing of evidence.
The same prosecutor's office that sent him to prison called the motion "frivolous" and vowed to fight.
Dillon was taken to Brevard for a hearing.
"I don't even know that there is any evidence," Dillon said. "I'm just filing this motion, hoping that there is."
Assistant Public Defender Mike Pirolo was assigned to the case. Pirolo soon learned that the Innocence Project -- a national litigation and public policy organization that, according to its Web site, is "dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system" -- wanted to help.
The Innocence Project had been instrumental in the exoneration of Dedge.
Pirolo said he knows many of his clients are guilty. But he felt different after meeting Dillon.
"It didn't feel like (Dillon) was trying to make things up," said Pirolo, who was only 2-years-old when Dillon was first arrested. "It was just one of those rare occasions when I just looked at a guy and instantly said, 'I believe him,' right from Day 1."
Penning a song
Months of waiting and hearings followed.
Music had become Dillon's escape. He taught himself to play the guitar, getting pointers from other inmates.
In June 2008, he wrote a song to capture what he'd been through. It is an angry yet soulful country ballad; he strums and sings in a smooth, sorrowful voice:
Black robes and lawyers, justice served it will be done.
Black robes and lawyers, Lady Justice lost her one.
I was taken by the lords of justice, cast away as a stone.
Left to rot in their dungeons for the murder of a man I don't know.
You committed a crime, you'll pay for that, don't you know that it's a fact.
A fact you know well, your freedom's shamed.
In the prison yard, a stone bares your name, bares your name.
One month later, he learned that the DNA test might open the prison gates for him -- nearly two years after a judge granted his motion for the testing. His lawyers told him the results showed he couldn't have worn the T-shirt linked to the crime.
"I feel completely exhilarated to the point where I have to hold myself in check," he said in a prison interview with FLORIDA TODAY before the state ordered his release in November 2008. "But I see it, I really see it happening. I hold myself in tight, and I'm at peace with whatever happens.
"I've waited a long, long time for this."
Contact Torres at 242-3649 or jtorres@floridatoday.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
