Arson suspect held in Florida wildfire case

Sarah Lundy

Sentinel Staff Writer

1:09 PM EDT, May 14, 2008

Palm Bay police hope to question a suspect they believe may be connected to at least one of the wildfire arsons in Brevard County.

Brian Crowder, 31, of Palm Bay was taken into custody this morning after he fled from officers.

The incident began around 4:20 a.m. when a resident near El Dorado Avenue and Jupiter Boulevard called police after seeing a man in a dark colored vehicle -- with distinctive stickers on it - throw something from his window into the woods.

Moments later the dried out plants erupted in flames, Palm Bay Police Chief Bill Berger said during a 10 a.m. press conference. (See photos from the press conference and of the brushfires in Brevard.)

Firefighters responded immediately and doused the 10-foot by 10-foot burning area with water, while police officers searched for the man in the car.

The fire was out within moments and police officers now had confirmation that their suspicions were true - an arsonist was on the loose. In the burned out foliage, investigators found a glass bottle that had once been full of flammable liquid. The item that a witness allegedly saw the man throw from his car.

An officer found the dark-colored vehicle and attempted to stop it. The driver bailed and fled. Police located the car's owner who told authorities that he had lent the vehicle to Crowder. By 7 a.m. officers spotted Crowder near the 500 block of Breakwater Street, Berger said.

About 60 police officers descended on the wooded area, the police helicopter was soon circling and the K-9 unit began tracking Crowder. The dogs found him and helped bring him into custody after an hour and a half search.

Crowder was bitten a couple of times on his legs by the dogs and suffered a minor injury on his face, Berger said. Crowder was taken to Palm Bay Community Hospital for treatment before authorities are able to interview him.

"Now the hard work begins," Berger said. "In CSI it's 43 minutes and the hard work is over," not exactly the reality Palm Bay investigators are tasked with completing.

Officials did not indicate whether they are searching for any other suspects in the other fires, but said Crowder is the suspect in this morning's fire.

This is not Crowder's first time in trouble.

In 2002, he was sentenced to five years in prison for grand theft of a motor vehicle and burglary. He was released in August 2005 and returned to Palm Bay on probation. In September, he failed a drug test and violated his probation. He was arrested and later released from jail. The next month he failed to report to his probation officer.

A warrant for his arrest was issued on Nov. 1, according to Department of Corrections.

Gov. Charlie Crist heard about Crowder while at the Governor's Hurricane Conference in Fort Lauderdale this morning.

"It's unconscionable to me that someone would want to intentionally put our fellow Floridians in harm's way by lighting a fire," he said. "It's outrageous. It's just hard to comprehend."

Crist praised the "aggressive pursuit of law enforcement" and hopes that the suspect or anyone else would do such thing is "prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. That's why we have jails."

He further asked the almost 20 million Floridians to keep their eyes open for anyone else might try to set blazes during this dry season.

"If they see anything that looks suspect, they should let local law enforcement know," he said.

Inmates say prison food made them sick

By Alex Leary, Times Staff Writer

Published Monday, May 12, 2008 8:51 PM


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TALLAHASSEE — Florida's prison system had already fined its food provider $241,000 this year over staffing and supply issues. And then 277 inmates said they became sick last month after eating chili.

The April 25 incident at a Panhandle prison has raised the latest question into the performance of Aramark Corp., which took over prison food service in 2001 as part of former Gov. Jeb Bush's privatization push.

"I think in the past we probably didn't manage the contract as closely as we should have," said Richard Prudom, chief of staff for the Florida Department of Corrections, on Monday. "I think they are just taking a little time catching up. But these fines mean we're serious."

The latest incident happened at Santa Rosa Correctional Institution in Milton. Prisoners complained of diarrhea and upset stomachs. The problems did not persist, and health officials have not determined whether the chili was the cause.

But the situation has added to ongoing trouble for Aramark, a powerful Philadelphia company that has been at the forefront of outsourcing efforts nationwide.

The corporation, which provided the food for the 2000 Republican National Convention and is a major GOP campaign contributor, has faced a wave of bad news recently, including a statewide probe in Connecticut about poor quality and service in public schools.

Already this year, Florida has fined Aramark $241,499 for slow meal delivery, insufficient staffing and other contract violations, according to records obtained by the St. Petersburg Times.

The company is challenging some of the fines.

That is more fines than the state has collected from Aramark in the previous seven years combined.

Some of the heftiest fines were levied this month after quarterly audits showed Aramark was not keeping enough food on hand to serve 100 percent of the prison population.

In an environment with few luxuries or freedoms, the availability of food is a paramount concern, officials say.

"If you mess with someone's food, there's likely going to be inmate unrest," Prudom said, adding the state has increased its quality standards and is paying closer attention to the contract.

Aramark spokeswoman Sarah Jarvis said the company is cooperating with the investigation into the April 25 sickness.

"Over the course of the contract, these types of issues come up and we … immediately correct any that are found to be valid," Jarvis said.

Aramark landed the state contract in 2001 and is currently paid $2.67 per inmate for three meals a day. It serves about 60,000 inmates across Florida and contends it has saved the state $100-million in food costs.

The contract was put out to bid last year, and another company, Oldsmar's Trinity Services Group, won about a third of the state business. Under the new terms, Aramark was required to add new, costlier food items, including French toast and squash. It also had to increase its staff.

Food fiasco costs inmates, taxpayers

Published Wednesday, May 14, 2008 6:33 PM


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As the Florida Department of Corrections finally begins to levy some serious fines against prison food contractor Aramark Corp., sick inmates aren't the only ones who need some answers. Taxpayers may well be getting the short end of this deal, and Gov. Charlie Crist needs to keep asking questions.

The Aramark contract, signed seven years ago by Gov. Jeb Bush, has been subject to so little scrutiny the department's own inspector general wrote last year that "most documents related to food service performance prior to 2004 (have) been purged from department files." The inspector general's report, released eight days after Crist was inaugurated, found that Aramark had pocketed a $10.5-million windfall by charging for meals it never served and by substituting cheaper ingredients without approval.

"Even if Aramark's original cost proposal was based on a break-even operating margin," the report stated, "FY 2005-06 compensation of $71-million was an excessive amount to pay for the reduced quality and percentage quantity of meals that the department received."

To its credit, the department now is beginning to do something about it. Aramark has been fined $241,499 this year, more than the previous six years combined. Department officials are also raising questions about a chili meal served April 25 at Santa Rosa Correctional Institution in Milton. Some 277 inmates reported diarrhea and nausea following the meal.

The concern here goes well beyond upset stomachs. Food plays a significant role in prison security. Experienced prison guards know that inmates who are not adequately fed can and do strike out at their captors. Fights can break out from the slightest change in cafeteria procedures.

Given the connection between Aramark and Republican political causes, questions about the contract were raised from the very start. Bush's first privatization czar quit the job when she found out that the governor was interested less in saving tax money than he was in transferring government services to private companies.

The department's "Cost-Value Analysis" last year, in fact, raises serious questions about whether Aramark ever saved taxpayers money. The original bid was never compared to the department's direct costs, and the company then took shortcuts. As more and more inmates stopped eating Aramark meals, the company charged as though it was still serving them. Then it began serving ground turkey instead of ground beef, at a savings of 57 cents a pound. In other words, it was cutting corners and still charging taxpayers top dollar.

The state auditor general's office is now conducting its own investigation, and Crist should be eager to hear the results. The department projected in 2006 that it could rehire staff and serve 5 percent more meals, at greater quality, for $7-million less than Aramark charged. If that estimate is even close to being accurate, he will want to end this privatization fiasco.

A Guilty Plea In The Sean Taylor Case

Venjah Hunte (L) and Charles Wardlow (C) are seen via closed circuit television at the Lee County Justice Center in Fort Myers, Florida, December 1, 2007. Hunte, one of five defendants charged with the death of Washington Redskins NFL footballer Sean Taylor, faces a 29-year jail sentence after pleading guilty to second degree murder and armed burglary.

Venjah Hunte pleaded guilty to second degree murder and burglary charges for his role in the killing of Redskins star safety Sean Taylor and was handed a 29-year sentence, the first in what Taylor's family hopes will be a series on long sentences. Hunte was one of five men charged with first-degree murder in the case and he was accused driver of the car used to get to and from Taylor's home; Hunte agreed to testify against the others as part of the deal, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

Richard Sharpstein, a Florida lawyer and Taylor family spokesperson, said the family worked closely with the state attorneys office during the plea process and believed the sentence - though not the life without parole being sought for all involved in the case - was sufficiently stern. Taylor's father, Pedro (called Pete by his friends), is a longtime police chief of Florida City, Florida.

"It appears on the surface that he's gotten a deal," Sharpstein said, "but he still serves at least 80 percent of the 29 years, which is a long stretch. It's no slap on the wrist. It's severe punishment and Pete and other family members were consulted and they approved the prosecutor's decision.

"Pete certainly understands the help that inside information gives to a case, and prosecutors always tend to look toward the lesser culpable people to solidify their case and have someone testifying from the inside. This is serve punishment, and with the others the family hopes each one as it goes along faces the most severe, harshest punishment they can receive."

A fifth suspect, Timothy Brown, 16, was charged with first-degree murder and armed burglary on Wednesday. Prosecutors recently waived their attempts to pursue the death penalty in this case citing restrictions regarding the age of the accused.

Jason Mitchell, Eric Rivera, Charles Wardlow are also charged in the case and trial is set for Aug. 25. Several defendants have been seeking plea deals, according to a source, but Hunte's 29-year sentence, given that he was not accused of entering the home, could become a baseline for the low-end of the sentencing structure.

'Backlog' death-penalty rationale fatally flawed

By Cara H. Drinan
For the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/16/08

On April 16, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection. Before the ink on the court's opinion was dry, officials in Virginia, Texas, Florida and Oklahoma set in motion plans to execute inmates whose deaths had been on hold.

Three weeks later, Georgia became the first state in the nation to resume use of the death penalty when it executed William Earl Lynd —- part of what a spokesman for the Georgia attorney general's office called an attempt to clear "the backlog."

In light of the recent release and exoneration of death row inmates in North Carolina and Texas, the sense of urgency driving these states is both perplexing and troubling —- and in the case of Georgia, whose indigent defense system is collapsing, it's downright embarrassing. Officials in these states should be focused not on clearing execution backlogs but on whether their death row inmates received effective assistance of counsel.

In the wake of several lawsuits, in 2003 Georgia created its statewide indigent defense system, which was lauded at the time as an example of the type of system the American Bar Association recommends. But only five years after its creation, the fledgling system is a shambles. A 2006 ABA report found Georgia's capital defense services so flawed that the organization called for a moratorium on executions and capital prosecutions until the state could study and remedy those defects. Two years later, those flaws, including inadequate funding and failure to provide counsel for post-conviction appeals, not only remain but are metastasizing. The now-infamous case of Brian Nichols (who killed a judge, a court reporter and two law enforcement officers while being retried for rape in 2005) has cost taxpayers $2 million in defense costs alone, and the trial has not even begun. Moreover, the judge initially presiding over the Nichols trial was threatened with impeachment for unpopular pro-defendant funding decisions.

Despite his resignation for other reasons, the incident exposed a lack of judicial independence in Georgia and what Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights called a threat to "the rule of law."

Other indigent defendants in Georgia have paid a heavy price for what the state has devoted to the Nichols trial. In 2007, the statewide defender system was forced to seek an emergency appropriation from the Legislature to remain operational; capital trials were put on hold; and capital defenders began to flee the system in the face of reduced compensation and excessive case-loads.

In short, as Carmen Hernandez of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers said, "Georgia has refused to fund its system and, as a result, Georgia's system is once again broken. . . . It has gone from leading light to disgrace in a few short years."

It is ironic that Georgia won the race to resume executions, but the state is certainly not alone in its indigent defense funding crisis. In the last year, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana and Utah have all experienced attorney shortages as a result of their inability to fund capital-defense services adequately.

Elected officials in states that allow capital punishment must accept the fact that these funding crises are not a short-term phenomenon. Recent Supreme Court case law has only bolstered a capital defendant's right to special safeguards at trial, and as a result of these safeguards, capital cases cost anywhere from 40 percent to 70 percent more than nondeath cases.

There is only one meaningful way for these states to contain the costs of indigent defense in the long run: to replace the death penalty with life without parole, as New Jersey has recently done. Before abolishing its death penalty, New Jersey conducted an exhaustive study of the costs and benefits of keeping execution on the books. By doing so, legislators were able to satisfy their constituents that the death penalty simply was not worth its prohibitive price tag.

Georgia and the other states that are expeditiously trying to clear their death row calendars could learn a lot from the elected officials in New Jersey. Rather than acting in haste, lawmakers in these states should call for a moratorium on the death penalty so that its costs and benefits can be evaluated in a circumspect manner.

Cara H. Drinan is an assistant professor of law at the Catholic University of America in Washington.

Barwick's killer doesn't want a jury to help decide sentence

Decision will be left up to the judge alone

By Suevon Lee suevon.lee@starbanner.com

Star-Banner

Published: Friday, May 16, 2008 at 6:45 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, May 16, 2008 at 7:34 p.m.

OCALA — Andrew Allred has waived his right to a jury, so only a judge will decide his punishment for the murders of Tiffany Barwick and Michael Ruschak.

The jurors' seats won't be the only ones left vacant: Allred doesn't want to attend the penalty phase, where the state and defense will argue whether he deserves the death penalty or life in prison.

Allred pleaded guilty earlier this month to two counts of first-degree murder. He didn't want a trial. But a penalty phase is still necessary.

During a Thursday hearing in a Seminole County courtroom attended by two prosecutors, the defendant and his lawyer, and several of Ruschak's relatives, Circuit Judge O.H. Eaton, Jr. granted both of Allred's requests, according to court records.

Both prosecutors — Stewart Stone and Kyan Ware — and Allred's attorney, Timothy Caudill, could not be reached for comment Friday.

Allred was arrested on Sept. 24, 2007, the night he shot and killed Ruschak, 22, and Barwick, 19, an Ocala native who was Allred's former girlfriend.

According to police reports, Allred, now 21, broke into Ruschak's rented home in Oviedo that evening, shot Ruschak four times in the chest and back, then shot Barwick, whom he found hiding in the bathroom while on the phone with a 911 operator.

He shot her at least seven times in the chest, wrist and legs, authorities said. Allred also shot Ruschak's roommate, Eric Roberts, in the leg when Roberts tried to stop the rampage.

Allred used a gun he had purchased shortly after his breakup with Barwick, records showed.

Allred was suspicious of the relationship between Ruschak and Barwick, a graduate of West Port High School. Authorities said that in the days leading up to the murders, the defendant hacked into his ex-girlfriend's bank account and online social networking sites, where he sent offensive messages pretending to be Barwick.

Although Barwick expressed her concerns about Allred to a Seminole County sheriff's deputy the day she died, the law prevented authorities from making an arrest.

The day Allred pleaded guilty, the Florida Senate unanimously approved the Barwick-Ruschak bill, which would broaden state law to afford victims of dating violence the same protections as those of domestic violence. Gov. Charlie Crist is expected to sign the bill into law.

The penalty phase is like a trial, except the only question is what punishment — life in prison or the death penalty — the defendant deserves.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers can call witnesses, present evidence and argue about the aggravating and mitigating factors of the case.

A jury typically hears all this and then makes a sentencing recommendation. Under Florida law in capital cases, a judge must take into consideration a jury's recommended sentence, but does not have to abide by it.

According to George "Bob" Dekle, a law professor at the University of Florida and a former prosecutor in Lake City, one reason Allred might want to waive a jury during his penalty phase is to avoid jury bias.

"If there is a tremendous amount of pretrial publicity, [defendants] may feel that a judge would be less likely to be influenced by pretrial publicity than a jury," he said.

As to Allred's request to not be present in court, Dekle said it could be one avenue to set Allred's case up for a possible appeal.

"Some people want to trick the system and see if they could have something happen [in circuit court] that the appeals court won't like," he said.

Court records from Thursday's hearing show, however, that Eaton ruled that Allred would need to be held "close by," so that his defense attorney could consult with him.

During a pre-trial hearing July 17, the judge will set the date of the penalty phase.


Suevon Lee can be reached at suevon.lee@starbanner.com or 867-4065

Problems mount for Broward public defender candidate

BY TODD WRIGHT twright@MiamiHerald.com

Gary Ostrow's candidacy to become Broward's new public defender has gotten off to a bumpy start and now faces a new legal hurdle.
A former client's family is suing Ostrow for allegedly lying about his qualifications to represent their son in a Miami-Dade County death penalty case.

The lawsuit comes two weeks after Ostrow was arrested on cocaine possession charges in Tallahassee, which he received while filing to run against incumbent public defender Howard Finkelstein.

The Perez family claims they paid Ostrow $57,000 to defend their son, Mario Perez, in a death penalty case, even though he was not state-certified to handle such cases.

He told the family he was qualified, the lawsuit alleges.

Ostrow ''knew that these representations were false and they were intentionally made to induce'' the Perez family to hire him, states the lawsuit, which was filed in Broward County Circuit Court earlier this week.

Ostrow said the family is trying to take advantage of the negative publicity he received because of his drug arrest.

'It's a `kick me while I am down' routine. It's absolute crap,'' he said. ``I went out of my way and above and beyond for this kid. The court found me qualified and I was qualified from the beginning.''

The Florida Supreme Court's guidelines require attorneys in death penalty cases to have at least handled two death penalty cases through to the verdict and have a certain amount of experience in capital crime cases.

Ostrow said the rule was meant to apply to public defenders who work death penalty cases, not private attorneys.

''Anybody has a right to the council of their choice,'' he said.

The lawsuit also claims Ostrow illegally broke the business agreement, defrauded the family, and failed to provide receipts for his work.

The family, which lives in Hollywood, is seeking an undetermined amount in damages.

''They feel he lied to them,'' said Wayne Koppel, the attorney representing the family. ``These people trusted him so they kept paying him because they were trying to keep their son off Death Row. He took advantage of them.''

Miami-Dade prosecutors and Circuit Judge Rosa Rodriguez also appeared concerned about Ostrow's qualifications, according to court documents.

Ostrow was hired by the family in January 2007 after Perez, 20, was arrested in connection with the shooting death of a man at a Hialeah gas station the month before.

Ostrow, who has practiced law for 26 years, agreed to take the case for $100,000.

The Miami-Dade state attorney's office did not initially file a motion to seek the death penalty, but in April, prosecutors said that if convicted, they would seek the death penalty.

That's when Perez's family first heard that Ostrow might not be qualified to defend their son, said Oscar Perez, Mario's brother-in-law.

''We were all surprised. He used to always tell us he was overqualified,'' he said. ``He kept asking for money and asking for money. It was pretty frustrating to hear the judge say he wasn't qualified for the case.''

Assistant State Prosecutor Audrey Frank-Aponte filed several motions asking Rodriguez to investigate Ostrow's qualifications to represent Perez.

Rodriguez required Ostrow to show proof he had worked on death penalty cases before.

There was no record of him working on such a case in Broward or Miami-Dade.

Still, Ostrow continued to work on the case.

Between May and October, Ostrow asked the family for at least $30,000 for work he was doing on the case, Oscar Perez said.

''I met with the family for untold hours,'' Ostrow said. ``I can't tell you how much time was spent with the family, let alone fighting with the state to stop the death penalty.''

At the very least, a private investigator should have been hired and other, more crucial witnesses should have been interviewed in 11 months, said Russell Williams, one of the attorneys now working the Perez case.

Ostrow said he was never formally fired by the family. He was cleared to handle death penalty cases in November, around the same time the family hired new attorneys.

''I don't see anything near $57,000 worth of work,'' Williams said ``There are things we still have to request from the state that he should have done. As far as I can tell, the family got knocked off by an attorney for almost a year who did nothing.''

The family tried to get some of the money -- about $45,000 -- back from Ostrow, but was rebuffed repeatedly.

It wasn't until published reports of Ostrow saying he would pledge $200,000 of his own money to fuel his election campaign that the family decided to sue.

The family collected money from several relatives and refinanced their house to pay Ostrow, Koppel said.

''This is a blue-collar family that pooled their money to try to save a family member,'' he said. ``And Ostrow took advantage of it.''

Supreme Court should forbid cruel punishment

May 14th, 2008
Supreme Court should forbid cruel punishment

Marc Morial

The U.S. Supreme Court recently granted a stay of execution to an Alabama prisoner while it determines whether the procedure of lethal injection violates the Eighth Amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling came a month after the hearing of arguments in a case filed in Kentucky on behalf of death row inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas C. Bowling that since September has put a de facto moratorium on all executions by lethal injection.

The case harkens back to 2006 when Clarence Edward Hill, an African-America convicted of murdering a police officer in Pensacola, Fla., challenged Florida’s lethal injection procedure. On death row from 1983 until 2006, Hill was originally sentenced to death by electrocution, but a state law changed it to lethal injection in 2000. But he wasn’t having anything to do with it.

In a sense, Hill became the poster child against lethal injection, the most popular form of execution in the United States. Used by nearly all states with death penalties, the procedure requires the use of three different chemicals in sequence – 1) an anesthetic to numb the body; 2) a chemical to paralyze muscles and stop breathing; and 3) a chemical to stop the heartbeat. Improper administration of the anesthetic could result in a very painful experience, one you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemies.

In a 2006 editorial, headlined, "Lethal Cruelty," the New York Times concluded that when poorly administered, lethal injection, considered by some to be more humane than the electric chair, "can in fact be particularly barbaric."

Earlier that year - on January 24, 2006 - Hill was just minutes away from the other side, strapped down to a gurney and hooked up to intravenous tubes awaiting his fate. He got a last-minute stay, courtesy of the Supreme Court.

And while the nation’s high court didn’t rule on whether use of the three chemicals was unconstitutional, the justices did agree unanimously that Hill had the right to make a claim against the state’s method. In June of 2006, the court kicked the lawsuit back to the lower courts, who unfortunately ruled against Hill, contending that he didn’t file his claim early enough. An appeal went all the way back to the Supreme Court, which denied a second stay. On September 20, 2006, Hill was put to death using the method he fought so hard against.

"The idea of a ‘humane execution’ is a contradiction in terms," observed Jamie Fellner, senior counsel for the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch, last month after oral arguments in the Kentucky case. "But if states are going to put people to death, they must choose the drugs and methods that carry the least risk of pain and suffering for the condemned."

Because lethal injection appears to be a medical procedure, it is a method of execution is perceived to be humane. When it is administered properly, it is humane. But when it’s not administered properly, it most certainly is not.

The National Urban League has always opposed the death penalty because it tends to disproportionately affect blacks, who are less able to afford adequate representation when accused of running afoul with the law. From 1976 to 2007, over one-third of executed death row inmates were black.

In 2006, according to Amnesty International, the United States ranked sixth in the world in terms of execution count - behind China, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and Sudan. That’s very interesting company to keep, especially for a nation that prides itself in being the world’s greatest democracy and beacon of freedom. If our nation is going to legalize an act as inhumane as execution, we, at the very least, owe it to the condemned to make it as humane as possible.

Justice Harry Blackmun, once famously proclaimed that "I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death." The National Urban League agrees, especially if it entails senseless suffering. That is why we very strongly urge the justices to see it Blackmun’s way later this year when a final ruling comes down. We are supposed to be a nation of civilized, concerned and humane citizens not a nation of savages.

Fifth Person Is Charged In Taylor Case

Thursday, May 15, 2008; E02

A fifth person has been charged in connection with the shooting death of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor, a spokesman in the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office said yesterday.

Timothy Brown, 16, of Fort Myers, Fla., has been charged with first-degree felony murder and armed burglary of an occupied dwelling, according to Ed Griffith, a spokesman for the state attorney's office. Brown was arrested Tuesday and booked into a Lee County jail. It is unclear when he will arrive in Miami. No initial court appearance has yet been set.

Taylor, 24, died Nov. 27 after surprising intruders in his home the night before.

Four other men -- Eric Rivera Jr., 18; Charles Kendrick Lee Wardlow, 19; Jason Scott Mitchell, 20; and Venjah K. Hunte, 20 -- were indicted by a Miami-Dade County grand jury last year on the same charges and are scheduled to go to trial Aug. 25. All four were arrested within days of Taylor's death.

In a sworn statement to the police, one of the defendants, Rivera, said that five people, not four, drove together from Fort Myers to Taylor's house near Miami on the night of the break-in.

After returning to Fort Myers, "all five of us" burned "clothes and shirts and gloves" so "nobody can find out who did it," Rivera told police, according to his signed statement dated Nov. 30.

"It's always been the belief of the police that there were one or more other suspects involved," said Richard Sharpstein, the attorney representing Taylor's family. "The family is thankful that the police have been dogged in their pursuit of all the individuals so that all the individuals responsible for Sean's death can all meet hard justice."

Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty, Griffith said. Rivera, the alleged gunman in the case, was 17 at the time of Taylor's death. Under Florida law, juveniles cannot face the death penalty.


-- Amy Shipley and Jason La Canfora

Sean Taylor Murder Suspect Cops A Plea

Venjah Hunte Will Serve 29 Years

Trial Is Set For August 25th

MIAMI (CBS4) ― A Ft. Myers man accused in the murder of Washington Redskins' star Sean Taylor has accepted a deal from prosecutors.

In exchange for pleading guilty to second degree murder and burglary charges, 20-year old Venjah Hunte will serve 29 years in prison and cooperate with prosecutors.

Hunte allegedly drove the men from Ft. Myers to Palmetto Bay in November, 2007, to rob Taylor's home. It was during that botched robbery, that one of the suspects, Rivera, shot Taylor in the groin. Taylor died a day later at Jackson Memorial Hospital. His girlfriend and baby daughter, who were in the house at the time of the shooting, were not hurt.

Hunte's defense attorney said his client actually pleaded guilty on Friday but prosecutors requested that the plea agreement be sealed because investigators were pursuing the fifth suspect.

Wednesday, 16-year-old Timothy Brown was charged with first-degree murder and armed burglary of an occupied dwelling.

Brown, who's a relative of suspect Charles Wardlow, allegedly travelled with Wardlow, Jason Scott Mitchell, Eric Rivera Jr. and Hunte the night they drove over from the west coast to commit the burglary.

Brown is currently jailed in Lee County awaiting extradition to Miami.

Last week, prosecutors waived the possibility of a death sentence since the suspected shooter, Rivera, was 17-years old at the time of the incident. Florida law prohibits the death penalty in cases where the shooter is a juvenile even if co-defendants are not minors.

In April, Miami Circuit Judge Dennis Murphy denied a bail request made by the 20-year-old Mitchell whose had appealed to the judge to let her son out pending trial. Murphy however ruled that Mitchell was likely to flee prosecution and might commit more crimes if released.

Family Questions Double Murder Case

Thursday, May 15, 2008 - 12:25 PM Updated: 05:40 PM

By Tuquyen Mach tmach@wmbb.com

Bay County, FL -- An attorney says a Bay County man accused of murdering his parents in their Fountain home back in February will likely enter a plea agreement at the end of this month.

Ricky Allen Morris, 25, is accused of killing his parents, Raymond and Debra Morris, at their home on Cardinal Avenue.

The Bay County Sheriff's Office says Morris apparently shot his father twice and his mother once with a rifle on February 3.

Jeffery Morris, Morris's uncle, is concerned, because he says no one in their family has been contacted about the case. Jeffery Morris is worried about whether his nephew is receiving proper medication for his mental illness.

"I think that Randy and Debbie would want Ricky to still be ok, you know. That they wouldn't want him to be... if he's sick he needs to be in a mental institution, then that's one thing. If he's going to be incarcerated, are they going to give him his medication or is he just going to get lost in the system?" says Jeffery Morris.

His uncle says the family weren't even aware of a possible plea deal in the case until they read the newspaper.

Public Defender Walter Smith says the State Attorney's Office is willing not to pursue the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea. Smith says Ricky Morris is facing a mandatory life sentence for the two counts of first degree murder.

The State Attorney's Office says any talks about a plea agreement are still in the preliminary stages, and they plan to meet with the Morris family to make sure they understand the plea deal before it goes through.

A court hearing on the plea deal is set to take place on May 28.

Between life and death

Too many accused of murder lack adequate counsel

With the U.S. Supreme Court's approval of lethal injection as a means of capital punishment, many states see a green light to go ahead with executions.

Georgia wasted no time, putting William E. Lynd to death Tuesday for a 1988 murder. And Florida Gov. Charlie Crist made a point of saying that he's ready to start signing death warrants again.

But there's a bigger problem with the American death penalty, one that will probably never be the subject of a sweeping Supreme Court ruling -- even as it contributes to cases of obvious injustice across the nation. Every principle of fairness insists that no person should be on trial for his life without adequate, competent legal counsel. Yet every national study suggests that the standard of death-penalty defense falls far short of that goal.

The greatest factor identified among people sentenced to death is not their race, age or even the relative heinousness of their crime; it's whether they can afford to hire private counsel. If they can't, they must rely on an underfunded (and possibly inexperienced) public defender, and the risk of being sentenced to death is far greater. "Poor people getting lousy lawyers" represents a significant barrier to justice, said John Holdridge, head of the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project.

The problem is particularly obvious in Florida, which leads the nation in death-row exoneration. On paper, this state does come closer than many others to guidelines set up by the American Bar Association for ensuring adequacy of capital-defense counsel. But in a 2006 assessment, the ABA identified substantial weaknesses in the way Florida administers the death penalty. State laws don't provide enough assurance that capital defendants have access to skilled attorneys, especially for those represented by court-appointed private attorneys. (Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero once angrily noted that these attorneys' work was among the "worst lawyering" he'd ever seen.)

The money paid for the average death-penalty defense is woefully inadequate. There's no oversight to ensure that each of Florida's 20 judicial districts meets basic guidelines for adequate representation. And Floridians pay for that inadequacy -- in the cost incurred by years of appeals, in the doubt that comes every time an innocent person is freed after years on death row.

Other governors have responded to that doubt -- and to the serious concerns that prompt it -- by seeking meaningful reform or asking their legislatures to reconsider use of the death penalty. In Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland and Attorney General Marc Dann both say they have no intention of rushing to execute prisoners in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, and Strickland bluntly says he's "not comfortable" with the death penalty.

That caution could serve Florida well. Before Crist cranks up the machinery of execution, justice demands that the weaknesses in Florida's death-penalty process be remedied -- or even better, that the state finally turn away from a punishment that's proven ineffective and unjust.



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No death penalty in Sean Taylor case

Sporting News staff reports

The four men charged in the murder of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor will not face the death penalty, the Fort Myers News Press reports. Rather, prosecutors are asking for life in prison without parole.

Florida lawyer and Taylor family spokesman Richard Sharpstein explained to the Washington Post that the prosecutors' decision is no surprise to the Taylors. The crime was committed in Miami, and Florida law prohibits the death penalty in cases where the shooter is a juvenile -- even if co-defendants are not minors. Eric Rivera Jr. is the alleged shooter in the Taylor case, and he was 17 at the time.

Rivera, Venjah Hunte, Jason Scott Mitchell and Charles Wardlow are charged with first-degree murder in the November murder of Taylor. Mitchell also was 17 at the time of the robbery attempt and shooting at Taylor's home; Hunte was 20, and Wardlow was 18.

The murder trial is set to begin Aug. 25.

Sharpstein said the family supports the prosecutors in the case and accepts what the law allows as the maximum punishment.

Man who killed ex-girlfriend with fire gets death penalty

Sarah Lundy

Sentinel Staff Writer

11:18 AM EDT, May 12, 2008

Dane Abdool, the man convicted of burning his ex-girlfriend to death, will get the death penalty.

This morning, Orange Circuit Court Judge Lisa Munyon followed a jury's recommendation that Abdool, 21, die by state execution.

Prosecutors say Abdool, who was 19 at the time, doused Amelia Sookdeo, 17, with gasoline and set her on fire in February 2006. He left her to burn on the side of County Road 545 in Winter Garden.

In December, the 12-person jury found him Abdool, 21, guilty of first-degree murder. They voted 10-2 in favor of the death penalty. It's rare for a judge to go against a jury's recommendation.

According to the Department of Corrections, Abdool will be one of the youngest prisoners on death row.

Wrongful Incarceration Act may not solve problems it was intended to

By Stephen D. Price
FLORIDA CAPITAL BUREAU

Lawmakers have called the bill an "automatic trigger" that will make it easier and quicker for those who unjustly lost their liberty to get a measure of financial compensation from the state.

Instead of years of legal and political maneuvering to, as Gov. Charlie Crist has said, right a wrong, the legislation was designed to hasten and level the process. The state will pay $50,000 for every year spent in jail for a crime a person didn't commit.

But the Wrongful Incarceration Act, which Crist has said he will sign, may be loaded with just as many complexities as the legislative process it is to replace.

The cases of seven men released from Florida prisons after DNA evidence cleared them of their crimes show how the legislation may not simplify things. Five of the men aren't eligible for the automatic provisions because they have prior felonies, contrary to the "clean-hands" requirement of the bill.

Even the cases of the two who are eligible provide a glimpse of just how difficult things could be.

That's not what the bill was supposed to do. It was written to avoid the pitfalls of the claims system, the legislative act required to override the state's sovereign immunity caps on any settlement larger than $200,000.

It was the way that process has worked — dependent on effective, connected lawyers and advocates — that lawmakers wanted to fix.

Most recently, Alan Crotzer spent more than two years navigating the maze of the Legislature to get a settlement for the more than 24 years he spent behind bars for crimes he was later cleared of. This year, the Legislature approved a $1.25 million payment to Crotzer.

Wilton Dedge, a Brevard County man who spent 22 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, won a $2 million settlement from the Legislature in 2005, nearly 18 months after he was released from prison.

WITNESSES 'MAY NOT BE ALIVE'

For some, getting compensated may be as difficult as proving they are innocent all over again.

Luis Diaz, who had been convicted of being the Bird Road rapist in Coral Gables in the late 1970s, will have a difficult case to prove under the global bill, his lawyers say.

Diaz, one of two Florida men eligible for compensation under the bill, was convicted of seven rapes, but DNA evidence exonerated him of two of those rapes and he was freed in 2005 after serving 25 years in prison. The problem is that for him to receive compensation, his lawyers will have to prove he didn't commit the other five rapes.

"They will have to go and reconstruct why he isn't the rapist from over 30 years ago," said one of Diaz's lawyers, Curt Kiser, a former House and Senate member from Dunedin and now is a lobbyist in Tallahassee.

Kiser said police have long claimed that one man was guilty for all seven rapes. "Some of the (witnesses) may not be alive, or moved away."

Chad Heins is also eligible for compensation under the new plan. He was freed in December after serving 13 years in prison, when DNA evidence showed he was not guilty of first-degree murder and attempted sexual battery.

Heins now lives in Wisconsin where he works on a dairy farm. Prosecutors are still investigating that case.

Orlando Boquete, who in 2006 was exonerated from a sexual battery and burglary conviction based on DNA evidence, won't have an easy road to compensation either. The new law prevents those with prior felonies from receiving automatic compensation, but Boquete's prior felony is a conviction for escaping while serving his wrongful imprisonment.

'PUNISHED ALL OVER AGAIN'

Advocates for the wrongfully incarcerated say they will wait to see how the process works, but they have doubts whether all the proven innocent will be compensated.

"You're innocent when we release you but you're not innocent enough to be compensated?" said Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida. "These two ideas just don't jibe together."

To file for compensation under the Wrongful Incarceration Act, an applicant, who has been exonerated of a conviction, must go before a judge and the prosecutor in that case must decide whether to argue against his or her fight for compensation or agree to it. Either way, a judge makes the final decision.

During the legislative session, the bill was most criticized for its "clean hands" provision which would exclude anyone with a prior felony from receiving compensation.

Those people are still able to file a claims bill, a lengthy procedure.

Seven corrections deputies placed on leave

By ALLYSON BIRD

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer allyson_bird@pbpost.com

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Palm Beach County sheriff's officials placed seven corrections deputies on leave in the past few days and are working with prosecutors to determine if criminal charges apply.

Officials from the sheriff's office and the State Attorney's Office would not disclose the nature of the investigation.

"By law, we're not allowed to talk about the investigation until it's complete," said sheriff's spokeswoman Teri Barbera.

Barbera said the seven deputies, under investigation for alleged misconduct, were placed on administrative leave with pay last week. Mike Edmondson, State Attorney's Office spokesman, said investigators expect to finish their investigation within the next few weeks.

Defense attorney blames serial killer for O.C. slaying

Opening statements launch death penalty trial for a Florida man prosecutors have linked by DNA to a cold case killing in Seal Beach.

By LARRY WELBORN

The Orange County Register

SANTA ANA – A notorious serial murderer knew details about the 1980 rape-slaying of a Seal Beach woman that only her killer would know, a defense attorney representing a Florida man charged in the same case told a jury Thursday.

Deputy Public Defender Dan Cook contended that Henry Lee Lucas – who once confessed to more than 600 murders – "got all of the facts right" when he confessed in 1986 to killing Simone Sharpe, 70, on Dec. 23, 1980.

Cook insisted in his opening statement that it was Lucas, and not his client – a convicted rapist named Benjamin Wayne Watta, 62 – who killed Sharpe.

But senior Deputy District Attorney Larry Yellin told the jury in his opening statement that Watta has been linked to the cold case crime scene by DNA evidence developed years after Lucas falsely confessed to the killing.

Yellin said the odds that someone other than Watta left the DNA recovered from Sharpe's body are less than one in a trillion.

And, the prosecutor said, Lucas has been excluded as the donor of the genetic material found at the Sharpe crime scene.

At stake for Watta is a potential sentence of death by lethal injection or life in prison without the possibility of parole if the jury finds that he committed first-degree murder during the course of a rape or a burglary. His is the first death-penalty trial in Orange County this year.

Sharpe was killed when she went to feed her neighbor's cats more than 25 years ago. Her son found her battered and bruised body in a bedroom of the neighbor's house on Christmas Eve 1980. She was suffocated.

The case went unsolved for years – until Lucas, a Texas drifter, confessed to a Seal Beach detective in 1986.

Lucas made headlines in the mid-1980s when he confessed to murdering more than 600 people during a cross-country killing spree with a crime partner. Detectives from 40 states went to Texas to talk to him about an estimated 3,000 homicides.

But soon, Lucas started recanting his confessions. Eventually, most law enforcement officers involved in the cases came to believe that a majority of Lucas' confessions were fabricated.

Still, Lucas was the only suspect in the Sharpe murder until 2001, when cold case detectives from the Orange County District Attorney's Office learned that Watta's DNA matched genetic material taken from Sharpe's body.

Lucas became the only death row inmate to have his death sentence commuted by then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

He died of natural causes in 2001 in a Texas prison, where he was serving a life term on multiple murder convictions.

Watta's trial before Superior Court Judge James A. Stotler is expected to last about two months.

Contact the writer: 714 834-3784, or lwelborn@ocregister.com

In asylum cases, immigration judges under a lot of pressure

By JOHN LANTIGUA john_lantigua@pbpost.com

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, May 10, 2008

MIAMI — One sister was murdered.

A second sister was raped.

The third sister, Marlene, says her business was burned down by the same Haitian political thugs.

According to her court file, Marlene's family was targeted for one reason only: their support for exiled Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Marlene fled to Florida and applied for political asylum. But her application was recently refused and she faces deportation back to Haiti.

Marlene is not alone in not being granted asylum. Miami immigration judges deny more asylum applicants than any of the 54 immigration courts in the nation.

But Marlene's case is particularly perplexing. The sister who was raped recounted the same family saga to a Miami immigration judge not long before and was awarded political asylum. A different judge heard Marlene's case and turned her down.

Her attorney says the judge denied her petition, in part, because she lacked a death certificate for her sister that listed the cause - murder.

"But how can you ask a person who is being persecuted under a certain government to go to that government for a document that says they are being persecuted?" asks Randolph McGrorty, head of Catholic Charities Legal Services in Miami, which represents Marlene - not her real name. "That isn't going to happen."

Many families in South Florida who are here legally - especially Haitians, Colombians and increasingly Venezuelans — have relatives like Marlene who apply for political asylum in Miami Immigration Court. For them, decisions made there can be confounding and emotionally grueling.

Even some immigration judges have grave doubts about the state of affairs, where judges have hundreds of cases and are forced to make decisions with worrisome speed. They say the U.S. promise to at least temporarily shelter those whose lives are endangered by political persecution is in some cases being abandoned.

"Our country has a legacy of providing due process to everyone," says Judge Dana Marks of San Francisco, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges. "These are death penalty cases at times. If they are denied, some of these people are facing death. We are not providing that due process. It's a very serious situation."

Crackdowns by immigration officials and a spike in deporations since Sept. 11, 2001, have stoked political asylum applications. Of the nation's 54 Immigration Courts, New York, Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco are the busiest. Miami judges alone decided 19,402 cases in fiscal years 2001 to 2006.

According to a study published last year by three university investigators, of those courts Miami has the smallest percentage of asylum applications approved - 23 percent - compared to a 40 percent average nationwide.

The other court in Florida is in Orlando and it hears much fewer cases. A study by two professors at Georgetown University and another at Temple, found Orlando judges approved 49 percent of asylum petitions, more than twice the rate in Miami.

For certain nationalities the odds are worse. Fifteen percent of Haitians applying for asylum in the Miami court win their cases. Colombians win 27 percent of the time in Miami, while they win much more often in other venues.

"Certain nationalities just have a harder row to hoe here," says McGrorty.

Immigration attorneys and other refugee advocates admit that many asylum applications do not deserve to be approved, because the people are fleeing financial hardship and not political persecution. They say other applicants, however, need asylum.

One set of figures that troubles those observers is the discrepancy in asylum decisions among judges. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which studied 140,000 decisions made nationwide between 2001 and 2006, some judges approve fewer than 10 percent of asylum applicants, while some approve more than 70 percent.

TRAC listed 242 immigration judges who had decided 100 or more cases. Of the top 10 toughest judges, Miami had four. They were led by Judge Mahlon Hanson who denied 97.6 percent of applicants. Of the top 20 toughest judges in the country, nine were in Miami.

Since cases are doled out to judges at random, the most crucial moment in a case can be when a judge is assigned.

"You know if you're before a particular judge, the cards are stacked against you," says Romy Lerner, staff attorney for the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami.

One clear example involves Colombians, whose country has been ravaged by guerrilla war for decades. One Miami judge granted asylum to 88 percent of the 334 Colombians he saw over five years. Another judge granted asylum to 5 percent of 426 Colombians.

As Miami immigration attorney Julie Ferguson puts it: "It's a crapshoot."

The authors of the 2007 study and South Florida observers say certain factors influence how a judge tends to rule. Women judges nationwide grant asylum more often than men: 54 percent to 37.

Experience matters. Many immigration judges are former attorneys for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, now part of the Department of Homeland Security, and they represented the government in asylum cases.

They tend to deny asylum more often. Judges who worked for organizations that defend the rights of immigrants or the poor, a smaller group, tend to approve more petitions.

The judges themselves say the biggest reform needed is more judges and more staff to deal with the flood of cases.

"I'll give you one example," says Judge Marks. "In the year 2000, each immigration judge in Denver had a caseload of 400 cases. Now the caseload for each judge is 1,700 cases."

Federal judges across the country have at least one and sometimes two judicial law clerks who do initial reading of cases and legal research.

"In Miami, we have three clerks for about 20 judges," says Judge Denise Slavin of Miami, vice president of the national immigration judges organization.

Slavin said judges are pushed to get cases done quickly and that isn't always easy.

"We're talking about people who are trying to get documents out of foreign countries," she says. "That can be time consuming."

In fact, just getting paperwork can be a nightmare.

Judge Slavin recalls a series of cases involving Colombians. Paperwork in asylum cases had to be signed by a specific Colombian official.

"But a plane that man was on was hijacked and he was kidnapped so there was no way to get the documents certified," she says.

Marks says the job is enormously demanding.

"You need to be a political scientist," she says. "You need to read through thousands of pages of country conditions and you're being told to do that under the gun."

Marks says that since criticism emerged in Congressional hearings the past two years, the Executive Office of Immigration Review has increased training for judges. Also, new judges must pass an examination, something not necessary before.

Lory Rosenberg, a former judge with the Board of Immigration Appeals, which reviews asylum decisions, says reform is badly needed.

"I hope they can make it better, more fair," she says, "especially when we are talking about life and death."

Horse killed more humanely than Death Row inmates, judge says

The Associated Press

May 11, 2008

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says the euthanized Kentucky Derby horse Eight Belles probably died more humanely than Death Row prisoners do.

Stevens' comments came a month after he voted with a majority of the Supreme Court to approve the most widely used method of lethal injection, while saying for the first time that he now believes the death penalty is unconstitutional.

According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Stevens told an audience of judges and lawyers that he checked into the procedure used to kill Eight Belles and was surprised to learn it is against the law in Kentucky to kill animals using one of the drugs in a three-drug lethal injection cocktail that many states, including Kentucky, use to execute prisoners.

Stevens drew a round of applause for the comments Friday night to the 50 federal judges and more than 800 attorneys at the 68th conference of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Eight Belles was euthanized after breaking both front ankles a quarter-mile after the finish at Churchill Downs a week ago.

In its 7-2 ruling last month, the Supreme Court turned back a challenge to the execution procedures in place in Kentucky, which employs three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates. Similar methods are used by roughly three dozen states.

The argument against the three-drug protocol is that if the initial anesthetic does not take hold, the other two drugs can cause excruciating pain.

No death penalty for Sean Taylor murder suspects

Eric Rivera, 18

PAT GILLESPIE
pgillespie@news-press.com

Miami-Dade prosecutors have waived the death penalty against the four suspects accused of murdering former Washington Redskins star Sean Taylor.

Eric Rivera, 18, Venjah Hunte, 20 and Charles Wardlow, 18, all of Fort Myers, and Jason Mitchell, 20, of Lehigh Acres, face charges of first-degree murder and armed burglary.

They will still face the possibility of life in prison, but Assistant State Attorney Reid Rubin sent notice to the defendants' attorneys late Friday he won't be seeking to kill them for the alleged crimes, said Hunte's attorney, Michael Hornung.

"They didn't leave Fort Myers with the intentions to shoot anyone or kill anyone," Hornung said. "They were going to make sure that person would lie down at gunpoint."

On Nov. 26, Miami-Dade police said, the four drove to Taylor's house. When they arrived, they broke into the Washington Redskins safety's house intending to burglarize it. But Taylor, 24, was at home with his wife and child, recovering from a sprained right knee.

The former Pro Bowl safety was shot in the leg and died of blood loss the next day.
According to Rivera's statement to investigators, five people drove to the house that night in a rented SUV, but only four arrests have been made.

Rivera, who was implicated as the shooter according to a grand jury indictment, was 17 at the time of the crime and wouldn't have been eligible for the death penalty under Florida law.

That complicated the process for prosecutors, Hornung said.

"It has a bad appearance to it," he said of seeking death against the non-shooters and not the alleged shooter.

Also according to the indictment, Mitchell was in the house wearing a mask during the armed burglary. Other reports released to the public have indicated the suspects used a 9 mm gun to shoot open a sliding glass door at the house. Dive teams searched off Alligator Alley after the shooting, but haven't found a weapon.

According to information previously released by police, Mitchell attended a birthday party in September at Taylor's home. He stayed at the house for several days, doing work around the house to prepare for the part and was paid $300 in cash.

Mitchell said he saw Taylor give his sister, Sasha Johnson, $10,000 in a paper bag as a present. Johnson was dating Wardlow's nephew at the time.

Investigators believe greed was motive for the defendants making the three-hour drive to the East Coast.

All four defendants have an Aug. 25 trial date.

ACLU to host death penalty presentation

Tuesday May 6th, 2008

OKALOOSA ISLAND – Florida leads the nation in Death Row exonerations — 26 since 1973

But with the rapidly growing prison population approaching 93,000, the third highest in the country, members of the Innocence Project of Florida believe their mission is just beginning.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida will present Seth Miller, Executive Director of the Innocence Project of Florida to discuss the organization’s current activities in Florida on May 9 at noon at the Emerald Coast Conference Center on Okaloosa Island.

Miller oversees the investigation and litigation of DNA testing requests in the Florida courts and advocates for release of inmates who have proven their innocence through the use of DNA testing.

Additionally, the Innocence Project provides comprehensive transition assistance to exonerees and lobbies the Florida legislature for exoneree compensation and necessary criminal justice reforms.

Before coming to the Innocence Project, Miller was a project attorney for the Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project at the American Bar Association and a staff attorney at the Florida First District Court of Appeal.

For more information, call 609-0940.

Central Florida man found guilty in fatal store shootings

Associated Press - May 8, 2008 3:54 AM ET

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - An central Florida man could get the death penalty after he was found guilty of fatally shooting two employees at a U-Haul store in 2000.

Prosecutors say Aurlieas McClarty shot the pair while they worked at the U-Haul store and ran off with $200.

The penalty phase of his trial will begin on Monday.


Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com

Abused child gets $18.2 million settlement from Florida

By Josh Hafenbrack

Tallahassee Bureau

May 7, 2008

Tallahassee

When she was 2, Marissa Amora was so badly abused at her Lake Worth home she suffered catastrophic brain damage that requires her to eat through a feeding tube.

Seven years later, she looked on at the Governor's Mansion as Gov. Charlie Crist signed a settlement Tuesday giving her $18.2 million for the role negligent child-abuse investigators played in her case.

"Justice is important," Crist said. "That's exactly what is happening today."

Crist's signature ends a long bureaucratic and legal battle that began in 2000, when Marissa was released from a Miami hospital room to her mother, even though Department of Children & Families investigators had inspected her apartment in Lake Worth and suspected child abuse. Hospital workers begged the investigators not to release the child, but they did not listen.

Less than one month after Marissa's release, she suffered permanent brain damage when her mother's live-in boyfriend reportedly swung the toddler by her arms and legs into the wall and floor. The boyfriend was never found and has not been charged. Marissa's mother was stripped of her parental rights.

In 2005, a Palm Beach County jury awarded Marissa $35 million and found the state and DCF responsible for 75 percent of the damages. But the Legislature and Crist had to sign off on the settlement in what's known as a "claims bill."

This spring, legislators and Crist agreed to give Marissa and her family, who now live in the Panhandle town of Marianna, $1.2 million this year and then $1.7 million installments the next 10 years.

"It's been a long journey and a hell of a fight," said Dawn Amora, Marissa's adoptive mother who cares for six other special-needs children. She ran a home for special-needs children in Loxahatchee before moving to a farmhouse on five acres in Marianna.

Marissa, dressed in pink, fidgeted in her wheelchair as some of the Capitol's most powerful politicians talked about the tragedy of her case. Incoming Senate President Jeff Atwater, R- North Palm Beach, pulled out a stick-figure drawing she'd made of him during a prior meeting.

The money will help pay for Marissa's back surgery scheduled in the coming weeks, as well as therapies and care to ensure she doesn't end up in a nursing home, Dawn Amora said.

"She's going to have a dignity to her life now that she wasn't able to have before," she said. "We've fought and struggled and re-mortgaged and refinanced — we're just so over our heads and crushed with the medical issues."

Marissa's case is believed to be the largest compensation award approved by the Legislature in at least a decade.

"I've got so much emotion, that we're going to give Marissa a better quality of life," said Sen. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee.

Josh Hafenbrack can be reached at jhafenbrack@sun-sentinel.com or 850-224-6214.

Remembering Kids Who Need Help

By MARIO HERNANDEZ

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 8, 2008

Today, the Department of Child and Family Studies (CFS) at USF's Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute is joining the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) initiative across the United States to participate in National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day: Thriving in the Community.

This day provides an important opportunity to share the message that children and youth with mental health needs - as well as their families - thrive when they have the right supports and services available.

In our state alone, the Florida Department of Children and Families estimates that 308,915 children have severe emotional challenges. SAMHSA reports that approximately 5 percent to 9 percent of our nation's children aged 9-17 experience serious emotional challenges, with many also having co-occurring substance abuse problems.

Unfortunately, despite ongoing exemplary state and local efforts, very few of these children, regardless of their race and socio-economic status, have access to the services necessary for recovery and positive youth development. These children don't just disappear. Instead, they show up in other systems, adding financial strain and overcrowding to juvenile justice, child welfare and restrictive educational settings.

CFS's mission is to generate hope and solutions for the complex issues confronting these children, their families and communities, through leadership in research, policy and practice innovation. CFS achieves this mission by being home to a range of resource centers dedicated to shaping state and federal policies and improving services and supports for children and young adults with special challenges and their families.

Together, with the efforts of other children's mental health initiatives, we must continue to improve the lives of children in Florida and across the country.

Dr. Mario Hernandez is professor and chair of the Department of Child & Family Studies, USF Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute. To access information on CFS programs, visit http://cfs.fmhi.usf.edu.

New trial set in Dollar General murder case

Back in court — Roy Lee McDuffie, convicted and sentenced to death for the 2002 murders of his co-workers, Dawniell Beauregard and Janice Schneider, at a Dollar General store in Deltona, is back in court April 18. He will get a new trial.

By Pat Hatfield
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted May 8, 2008 - 2:36:13pm

Roy Lee McDuffie, convicted for the October 2002 Dollar General murders in Deltona, has won a new trial based on errors in his first trial.

McDuffie’s trial is now scheduled to start Monday, Sept. 22. Circuit Court Judge James R. Clayton set the date, and is expected to preside over the proceedings at the Volusia County Courthouse in DeLand.

“We’re working diligently on the case, and will be ready for trial in September,” Robert A. Sanders Jr., McDuffie’s attorney, said.

He is weighing whether he should ask for a change of venue. “It’s under consideration,” Sanders said.

The murders of two of McDuffie’s female co-workers, and the original 2005 trial, generated strong feelings and media attention in Volusia County.

A Volusia County jury convicted McDuffie of the first-degree murders of Dawniell Beau-regard and Janice Schneider, employees of the Dollar General Store in Deltona where McDuf-fie had started work earlier in the week before the murders.

In November 2007, the Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction and remanded McDuffie, who was on death row, for a new trial.

The Supreme Court, in its reversal per curiam, stated, “We conclude that errors occurred during the course of the trial, which when viewed cumulatively, are not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Defense attorney Sanders said, “There were three evidentiary errors. The court kept out a key defense witness, and limited cross-examination by the defense on a couple of state witnesses.”

In addition, he said, there was blood at the scene that belonged to neither McDuffie nor the victims, indicating another person was there. Sanders said DNA testing should be performed on that blood.

Hair found on duct tape used to bind one of the victims should have been subjected to mitochondrial DNA testing. It was tested only to determine race, Sanders said.

At the trial, prosecutors said McDuffie’s motive was money. They painted him as broke, in debt and desperate for money, which he suddenly had the day after the robbery and murders. The prosecution produced evidence McDuffie bought money orders totaling $1,450 the morning after the killings.

Beauregard and Schneider were found in the store’s back room the night of Oct. 25, 2002, dead from close-contact gunshots to the head. The day’s cash receipts of $4,946.17, along with checks in the amount of $1,467.76, were missing, and never recovered. The gun used to kill them was also missing.

The only physical evidence implicating McDuffie was half of a palm print found on duct tape used to bind Beauregard’s wrists. Schneider was not bound, and it appeared she had started to cut Beauregard free before being attacked herself. She was shot first in the abdomen, then later in the head.

Both women received non-fatal cuts to their necks before they were shot.

Circumstantial evidence and witnesses placed McDuffie at the scene around the time of the murders, believed to be between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.

McDuffie told investigators he left the store shortly after another employee, Carol Hopkins, left. Records showed Hopkins clocked out at 8:34 p.m.

McDuffie said he then went with his wife to pay a bill, then ate dinner at McDonald’s, then went home.

The defense called McDuf-fie’s friend Anthony Wiggins to testify. Wiggins sent McDuffie a couple of Western Union money transfers totaling $340. Wiggins was the only non-family member who could testify he loaned money to McDuffie in the weeks before the murders.

The state objected to Wiggins’ testimony. Wiggins had been listed as a penalty-phase witness only, not a guilt-phase witness. He produced a $40 Western Union receipt dated Oct. 18, 2002, on the day in 2005 he was to testify. He said he had no receipts for the other $300 he said he sent McDuffie.

The Supreme Court found the trial judge excluded the receipt and testimony without exploring alternatives, such as a short delay for a deposition.

The Supreme Court also found defense counsel was denied sufficient cross-examination of a couple of prosecution witnesses, to lay grounds for impeaching them.

A landlord’s testimony of threats McDuffie left on a voice mail after the landlord filed an eviction notice on him, should not have been admitted, the Supreme Court determined.

The landlord had erased the tape, but was allowed to testify to its contents, over defense objection. The prosecution said it went to show McDuffie’s state of mind leading up to the robbery and murders.

— pat@beacononlinenews.com

Parole denied for man who pushed pregnant wife off boat

By Linda Kleindienst

Tallahassee Bureau Chief

May 8, 2008

TALLAHASSEE

On Nov. 15, 1981, Michael Scott Keen took his pregnant wife of five months out on his boat for a relaxing Sunday afternoon on the water.

Within a few hours she was dead, pushed overboard 15 miles off the coast of Dania Beach as golden oldies played on the radio. Her husband calmly circled his boat, the Foreplay Too, for hours until she finally gave up her fight to live and slipped beneath the water.

Anita Lopez, 22, died that day for the $200,000 in life insurance that her husband, then 33, hoped would let him retire early. He told police she accidentally fell off the boat.

Arrested three years later as he was about to wed again, Keen was convicted of first-degree murder. On Wednesday, the Florida Parole Commission decided that he would never leave prison.

When convicted of the crime in 2002 — after his fourth trial on the same offense — Keen was sentenced to life in prison, where he had been since 1984. The law at the time he was charged allowed inmates to apply for parole after serving 25 years behind bars.

But parole commissioners agreed that Keen, now 60 years old, shouldn't leave prison for at least 175 years — until Aug. 23, 2159.

"I feel closure because as long as he lives, he will have that on his conscience . . . he will have to live with the guilt and face God. God will have to take his own punishment on him," William Lopez, Anita's young brother, said after the commission's decision.

Lopez had traveled to Tallahassee to make a personal plea, begging the state not to forget his sister and the impact the tragedy had on his family.

"Due to the selfish desires of this vacant soul . . . my sister no longer has the opportunity to live the life she had dreamed of living," he told the parole commission. "Our family was shattered."

The Lopez family left Cuba in 1971, hoping to find a better life in Florida. Anita was working at a tractor factory in Miami when she met Keen.

Soon after they married, they took out two $50,000 insurance policies on her life, with Keen the beneficiary. They were worth double in the case of accidental death.

"He didn't want to be part of the family, so he isolated her," said William Lopez, who was 9 years old when his sister was murdered. "My mom went to their house one day and saw her doing the insurance papers. She took it as a sign and told Anita, 'You're basically signing your death warrant.'"

Keen's first three convictions were overturned because of procedural errors. The first two juries sentenced him to death. The third jury was evenly split, six jurors seeking the death penalty, six voting for life, so the judge had to impose the life sentence. As a result, during the fourth trial the state had no option but to seek life in prison.

"This is one of the worst cases I've ever tried, mainly because of the cruelty. How cruel can you be, just watching your wife suffer? You know she knows of her impending death," said Broward Assistant State Attorney Chuck Morton after the parole meeting. Morton prosecuted Keen the third and fourth time.

Morton told parole commissioners that Keen murdered Anita while she was pregnant because he didn't want to care for a baby.

"He did nothing in his lifetime but scam, scheme and lie. She was nothing more than a cash cow to him," he said.

William Lopez, now 36 and living in West Palm Beach, said he plans to make a documentary of his sister's life, hoping that it will educate other young women about what warnings signs to look for and how to avoid abusive relationships.

"I want to show other women out there that there are people who want to hurt you," he said. "For a family that came from Cuba to start a new life and was torn apart by somebody who took away the one precious keystone we had, that's tragic."

Linda Kleindienst can be reached at lkleindienst@sun-sentinel.com or 850-224-6214.

Hundreds of Job Cuts on the Way at Department of Corrections

The Florida Department of Corrections honored its fallen officers Wednesday morning. The ceremony was a time to remember those who served the community with bravery.

Crowds gathered at the Wakulla County Correctional Institution, to remember the 37 officers who died on the job, in the department's history. But it wasn't too long before talk turned to Florida's looming budget cuts.

A wreath adorned with roses was presented, each rose representing an officer who died in the line of duty. "When we come on duty we face .... the unexpected. Everything that can possibly happen might happen," says 13 year employee, Sergeant Carol Lewis of the Department of Corrections.

"You have to realize that you're working with inmates. A lot of them very violent inmates. If you're not aware of that at all times, you put yourself in jeopardy," says Sergeant Laura McDonald, who has worked for of the Department of Corrections for more than 10 years.

Many say that the threat of violence and knowing people who have been injured or killed helps them to put things into perspective.

"And what's important in life are our friends, our family and our dedication to service to this community," says Walt McNeil, Secretary at the Department of Corrections.

But for some in the Department of Corrections, their dedication and service won't be needed anymore. That's because the Department is facing a $28.8 million cut.

"No matter what the odds, no matter what the circumstances, people working together as a team we will prevail and we will make sure that the citizens of Florida are safe," adds McNeil.

Officials at the Department say, they'll try to achieve that massive cut by eliminating more than 600 jobs statewide. Right now it looks like the biggest chunk will be taken out of the budget for probation's staff, but administrative positions will be cut, as well as education programs. And those cuts will go into effect in July.

Reporter: Roman Lillie

Email Address: mailto:Roman.Lillie@wctv.tv

Florida Back To The Future: Build Prisons, Cut Schools

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 6, 2008

The Miami Herald's analysis probably said it best: The big winners in the new state budget are prison builders; the big losers are public schools.

Talk about getting your priorities wrong.

When the legislative session ended Friday, Gov. Charlie Crist and lawmakers congratulated themselves for a job well done. But public schools and parents found nothing to celebrate. They know the $900 million cut in K-12 funding will hurt education when public schools begin the new year in August.

In remarks after the Legislature closed, the governor focused not on the cuts, but on having saved the state's merit-pay plan for teachers, a program used by just a handful of districts, including Hillsborough.

The merit-pay plan is not highly regarded because the way it's scored - a mix of FCAT scores and performance reviews - falls short of rewarding the most effective teachers. This year half of the finalists for Hillsborough's Teacher of the Year - including the winner - didn't qualify.

It would be far better to spend the money in ways that clearly benefit students and reward strong teachers.

Floridians deserve straight talk from the governor. Even the most optimistic among us cannot pretend our schools will be better off next year, and Crist should not suggest otherwise.

Most disappointing is that the governor promised to hold education harmless when he campaigned in January for Amendment 1, the state constitutional amendment that allows homeowners to take their property-tax cap with them when they move. Critics said the amendment's passage would hurt public education, but Crist promised education would be held harmless.

Harmless. That was his word.

Harmless. Tell that to the teachers in Pinellas County who face pay cuts and the closure of seven to 10 schools.

Harmless. Tell that to Hillsborough students who will likely see fewer librarians and school nurses, as well as overcrowding in elective classes not covered by the class-size amendment.

Harmless. Tell that to Broward and Miami-Dade schools, which will take about a third of the $900-million cut and expect to have to lay off social workers and guidance counselors.

Harmless. Tell that to the schools cutting summer school programs, school security, and art and music classes.

In Tallahassee's depressing climate, lawmakers couldn't even agree on a way to give cash-strapped districts temporary relief from class-size caps, which continue to require the construction of costly new classrooms.

None of this sounds very harmless at all.

At the same time, the state plans to spend nearly $300 million to build new prisons and, incredibly, another $86 million to operate a private prison.

Florida's prison population is expected to soar from about 96,000 inmates today, to 120,000 inmates by 2012.

Experts say the best way to slow the need for prisons is to put your money into cheaper, more humane efforts at prevention, starting with education.

This year, Florida sounded a retreat in the battle. By doing so, lawmakers failed our children.