By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 1, 2001 


LARGO -- After 17-year-old Anthony Castle was killed by a shot to the head Jan. 13, witnesses saw a heavyset man in a brown jacket running away. 

St. Petersburg police showed mug shots of possible suspects to one eyewitness in particular. That witness identified a man with resolute certainty. 

She identified Larry James Brown Jr. as the killer. 

But not long after St. Petersburg police arrested Brown for first-degree murder, a Pinellas County grand jury last week refused to indict him. It's a rare example of a grand jury rejecting a murder charge filed by police. 

Brown, 20, is still jailed on unrelated drug charges. 

Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger's office found witnesses to support Brown's alibi that he was home sleeping at the time of the shooting. 

And when Dillinger made the witnesses available to State Attorney Bernie McCabe, McCabe's lieutenants called them before the grand jury without hesitation, Dillinger said. 

"If there's evidence that a person is innocent, the grand jury should hear it," Dillinger said. "It saves taxpayers a lot of money, and it's the fair thing to do. The state called the witnesses and let the chips fall where they may. They did the right thing." 

Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett did not close the door on the possibility that his office may yet again seek a grand jury indictment of murder against Brown if more evidence comes to light. 

Since the case is ongoing, prosecutors and police declined to discuss what evidence they presented to the grand jury. Nor would they provide a motive for the shooting just south of 22nd Avenue S. 

Bartlett said his office must present all evidence to a grand jury, whether it hurts or helps their case. 

This is especially important, he said, because the grand jury system does not allow a defendant's attorney to be present, much less call witnesses. 

"From a prosecutor's standpoint, it's very foolish not to have the grand jury consider all the evidence that exists," he said. "Our job is to seek justice, not merely to convict. It's kind of like mom's apple pie." 

But Bartlett said, "I do not agree with the proposition that Mr. Brown is innocent" of the crime. Bartlett would not go into detail about why he thinks Brown was involved in the shooting. 

Dillinger credited one of his investigators, Mickey Romanello, with finding four alibi witnesses who, he said, confirmed Brown was sleeping at the time of the 8:30 p.m. shooting. 

Some of the witnesses had been sought by police but not yet located. 

Brown, who lived at 2219 1/2 Seventh St. S, is jailed awaiting trial on two counts of possessing crack cocaine with the intent to sell and operating a crack house. 

Dillinger's office declined to make him available for an interview. 

The state high court says an appeals court should revisit Pinellas Park's rule for teens. The move leaves all such laws in question for now. 

By ANNE LINDBERG

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 27, 2001 


The legality of curfews across the state remained in question Thursday after the state Supreme Court avoided ruling on the constitutionality of Pinellas Park's juvenile curfew. 

The high court tossed the issue back to the 2nd District Court of Appeal to reconsider whether the curfew is constitutional. But justices said the appeals court should use guidelines different from those used last May when it declared the curfew sound. 

While the case works its way back through the court system, Pinellas Park officials say they will continue to enforce the curfew. 

"Nothing has changed as far as the curfew goes," Pinellas Park police spokesman Sandy Forseth said. "We're still enforcing the curfew until a court tells us to stop." 

Tampa, Largo and Kenneth City also have juvenile curfews, but the decision should have no immediate effect on those cities, said Michael Neimand, the assistant state attorney general who argued the case before the Supreme Court. 

But officials in those cities and in such places as St. Petersburg, where a curfew was considered, are keeping an eye on the court system. Subsequent rulings could wipe out all curfews across the state. 

"My inclination is to let it play out before I bring it back," St. Petersburg City Council member Jay Lasita said. Lasita has long been an advocate of juvenile curfews and spearheaded an unsuccessful drive last year to have the St. Petersburg council pass one. 

Lasita said he has thought of bringing the issue back before the council, but "if there's any sort of constitutional cloud over this thing, it's going to be difficult to bring it back." 

Pinellas Park passed its juvenile curfew in 1997, saying it was an effort to reduce youth crime and protect children. The curfew generally restricts youths younger than 18 from being in public without an adult from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weekdays and from midnight to 6 a.m. on weekends and legal holidays. A written warning is the penalty for the first violation. Juveniles can be fined up to $500 and face six months' imprisonment for subsequent violations. 

The curfew had not been in effect long when the state American Civil Liberties Union challenged it. The ACLU argued that the ordinance was unconstitutional because it interfered with parents' rights to raise their children without too much governmental intrusion. 

Pinellas-Pasco Judge Peter Ramsberger agreed, ruling the curfew unconstitutional. 

Pinellas Park appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal. 

That court, in a 2-1 decision, overturned Ramsberger's ruling and reinstated the curfew. The judges said Pinellas Park has an interest in reducing juvenile crime. That interest, they said, overrides any rights parents might have to allow their children to stay out late at night. 

The ACLU took the case to the state Supreme Court, which declined Thursday to decide the issue of constitutionality. 

The high court instead told the appeals court to reconsider that issue using a stricter set of legal guidelines to determine whether the ordinance should stand. 

The decision, ACLU attorney Bruce Howie said, makes him hopeful the ordinance will be overturned in time. The appeals court decision indicated that if those judges used the stricter guidelines, they might have reached a different decision, he said.

Prosecutors complain about a system that pulls from licensed drivers, not voters. But defense lawyers say it yields a more diverse jury.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 7, 2001

A lobbyist stood in front of Florida lawmakers a month ago and repeated a complaint by prosecutors in courtrooms across the state. 

Potential jurors showing up for trials are beginning to look similar to crowds at concerts for the defunct rock band, the Grateful Dead, said Buddy Jacobs, a lobbyist for prosecutors. 

It wasn't a compliment. 

That crowd is supposed to be an irreverent bunch, non-conformists who march to the beat of a different drummer. Not pro-prosecution people. 

"We're getting a broader group of jurors than we used to," said Skip Babb, public defender in the 5th Judicial Circuit, which includes Citrus and Hernando counties. "And prosecutors don't believe they're getting a fair shake." 

Since Jan. 1, 1998, jurors have been picked from the lists of licensed drivers rather than from the rolls of registered voters. 

State lawmakers have toyed with the idea of going back to the old system, lending a sympathetic ear to prosecutors who lament that juries seem far less respectful of the system -- and less likely to convict. 

But this year's legislative session ended with a bill to go back to the old jury system shelved for another year. 

"I think there's great dissatisfaction for the current system," said Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer. "We're seeing many more jurors who have a disregard and disrespect for the system, a lack of pride for their civic duty." 

State Sen. Rod Smith, D-Alachua, who is a former prosecutor, introduced this year's bill. His staff said he withdrew the bill so lawmakers could commission a study to examine a number of issues, including examining complaints that fewer people now show up for jury service. 

"We've heard stories about judges having to send bailiffs out on the street to find enough jurors for trials," said Tonya Shays, a spokeswoman in Smith's office. 

That doesn't appear to be the case in the Tampa Bay area, where the number of jurors reporting for service is generally adequate. 

Otherwise, the complaints have been many. Prosecutors say people who register to vote have a greater sense of civic duty, are older, are more respectful of the system and make better jurors. 

Jurors picked from the rolls of licensed drivers, meanwhile, are said to be angrier at being called for service and more likely to acquit defendants or even hand out large civil awards. 

Prosecutors also fear more convicted felons, ineligible for jury service, now make it onto juries without detection. 

"Sometimes we get a jury panel, and the whole panel has an attitude," said Alan Johnson, chief of felony prosecutions in Krischer's office. "But it's all anecdotal evidence, not statistical." 

Figures don't appear to bear out a drop in conviction rates under the new system. 

Conviction rates have not changed significantly in the two years before and after the change, according to figures compiled by the Office of the State Courts Administrator. 

In 1996, for example, the statewide conviction rate stood at 60.4 percent. In 1999, the last year figures were available, the conviction rate was slightly higher at 61.7 percent. 

Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger, like most public defenders, likes the new system and doesn't buy arguments that juries today are less likely to convict. 

"We're seeing more people today who may not have been your traditional voters," he said. "But I still think they're productive citizens who take jury service seriously." 

Pinellas criminal defense attorney Steve Bartlett said, "What are prosecutors saying, only people who approve of what the government does should be allowed to serve on juries? That's crazy. 

"Why shouldn't people who are unhappy with the system and think there is injustice out there and think that the government doesn't always run smoothly and believe that police are capable of lying and that prosecutors charge innocent people -- why shouldn't they be on juries, too?" he said. 

That's the point of the new system, a system that brings more minorities and younger people into the courtroom, a system that truly brings a defendant a jury of peers, Bartlett said. 

Getting jurors from registered voters assured "that predominantly in Pinellas County, we got senior citizens and very little race representation," said criminal defense attorney Jeff Brown. 

"Now, we're seeing much more diversity." 

State Sen. Walter Campbell Jr., D-Tamarac, who is also a plaintiff's attorney, doesn't like the juries he sees. 

Many more jurors today don't want to be in a courtroom, he said, and he always fears they will take their anger out on one side or the other without fairly considering the evidence. 

"Then you have trial attorneys who are trying to determine how to become the jurors' friend so they don't take their anger out on their client," Campbell said. 

But Campbell drew the line at the committee meeting at which the lobbyist for prosecutors made the comment about the Grateful Dead. 

Asked Campbell, "What's wrong with the Grateful Dead?"

By ANGELA K. BROWN
.c The Associated Press

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers said Saturday it would form a task force to address what it calls ``systematic corruption'' in forensic laboratories across the country. 

Members plan to review cases where defendants were convicted on DNA evidence analyzed by scientists whose work or testimony in other cases has been questioned. 

``We're very serious about litigation and winning in this area,'' association president Edward Mallett said Saturday at the spring meeting of the group, which claims 10,500-members. 

The task force will be led by attorney Barry Scheck, who co-founded The Innocence Project, a group that helps inmates challenge convictions with DNA evidence. 

Defense attorneys say juries often convict based on testimony from scientists, rarely questioning their methods or motives. 

Lawyers say forensic labs must work independently from police and prosecutors. They say labs must do a better job of making sure employees are qualified and that evidence and results remain sealed. 

Scheck said a recent Oklahoma case was an example of ``forensic fraud.'' Police chemist Joyce Gilchrist has been criticized by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals for allegedly testifying to results that were not scientifically supported. 

In 1999 a federal judge accused her of giving ``untrue'' and ``misleading'' testimony for her work in an Oklahoma murder case. 

Gilchrist was placed on paid leave after an FBI report accused her giving testimony ``that went beyond the acceptable limits of forensic science'' and of misidentifying hair and fibers in at least six criminal cases. 

Gilchrist, a 21-year employee of the police department, has denied the allegations. 

Scheck said 25 people on Oklahoma's death row were implicated by Gilchrist's testimony about hair and fiber analysis. He urged members to help review those cases. 

Top law officers will sign a resolution today against race-based policing in hopes of ending bias perceptions.

By LEANORA MINAI

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 9, 2001


ST. PETERSBURG -- As Attorney General Bob Butterworth prepares to appoint a task force that will investigate racial profiling by police, Pinellas County police chiefs are joining the effort.

They will sign a resolution today banning race-based stops and searches.

The resolution makes a bold statement on paper but provides no sanctions for breaking it. Still, police administrators say, it should help change a perception that discriminatory enforcement actions occur.

"There are significant minority communities in Pinellas, and they're growing, so we want to get ahead of the curve," said Tom Lange, executive director of the Pinellas Police Standards Council, which includes all Pinellas police chiefs, State Attorney Bernie McCabe and Sheriff Everett Rice.

The resolution urges each Pinellas police agency to adopt a policy ensuring that officers do not make decisions based on gender, sexual orientation, race, creed, or national origin. It will be signed at 1 p.m. today at the Allstate Center at St. Petersburg Junior College.

Last month, the Tampa Police Department implemented a policy prohibiting officers from targeting someone based on race or ethnicity.

Communities across the country are trying to identify racial profiling and end the practice.

In Cincinnati, where riots erupted last month after a police officer fatally shot an unarmed black teen, police are now required to record the race, sex and age of each person in every car they stop. The St. Petersburg Police Department, for example, does not collect that sort of data and does not have plans to start.

"It's engrained in our policies and procedures that that type of behavior is not acceptable," Chuck Harmon, assistant chief of patrol, said of racial profiling.

Pinellas police officials say there is no evidence that departments are disproportionately singling out minority drivers for traffic stops or other law enforcement actions.

"We're not aware of there being a problem here in the county right now, although if you spoke to someone who fits into one of these groups, they may tell you they have a different view of it," said Lange, the police council's executive director.

Darryl Rouson, president of the St. Petersburg branch of the NAACP, has a different view.

"Yes, it's happening," he said. "I think that my community feels a bit safer but still harbors concern of being charged with driving while black."

Rouson praised Pinellas police officials for their stand.

"It's phenomenal that the top law enforcement would join together and make a statement like this at a time when Cincinnati is boiling over," Rouson said. "I hope that it has impact on those who really need to hear it."

The Pinellas Police Standards Council had an incentive to write and pass the resolution.

A bill, now awaiting the signature of Gov. Jeb Bush, would require agencies to write a policy against discriminatory profiling. Officers also would get training.

"I think this is a good thing for agencies to step up to the plate," said Sen. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, who pushed for a task force.

Butterworth's task force also will draft legislation for the 2002 session that could outlaw race-based stops, Meek said.

"It can make or break a city," Meek said of discriminatory enforcement.

Joe Bizzaro, Butterworth's spokesman, said Tuesday that a task force will be appointed, but he does not know when or how.

"That stuff all has to be worked out," Bizzaro said.

The principal at Oldsmar Elementary says the 11-year-old probably won't return for the rest of the year.

By ED QUIOCO and JULIE CHURCH

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 11, 2001


OLDSMAR -- A fifth-grader was taken from Oldsmar Elementary School in handcuffs Wednesday after a teacher found drawings he had made of weapons, school officials said.

The 11-year-old, who is not being named because of his age, was not charged with a crime. The boy was taken to meet with his parents and counselors after classmates told school officials about the drawings.

"There were some drawings that were confiscated by the teacher," principal David Schmitt said. "The children were in no danger at all. It involved no real weapons."

The boy has received a discipline that Schmitt said he couldn't discuss. But he said the boy probably won't return for the rest of the year and probably would be moved to another school.

The boy was handcuffed by campus police for his safety and not because the student was violent or out of control, said school district spokesman Ron Stone.

"That's normal procedure in a situation like this," Stone said. "The primary concern was to make sure we get appropriate services for the child."

It is not unusual for students in elementary and middle schools to make threats, said Nancy Zambito, a director of school operations for the school district. The typical procedure involves immediately notifying a campus police officer or a school resource officer, counselors and the student's parents to "assess the threat and work with the child," she said.

Depending on the severity of the threat, Zambito said, the outcome for the student can be a number of things ranging from disciplinary action by the school, such as suspension or expulsion, to being arrested or taken to a hospital under Florida's Baker Act, which allows for the involuntarry commitment of people who threaten or attempt to hurt themselves or others.

"It's nothing unusual and we address them all seriously because, of course, we don't know," Zambito said. "And in most cases, our prime goal is to let those students know what is appropriate to say and what is not and how to be angry and cute and funny without alarming people."

The classmates who turned in the student after seeing his drawings should be commended because that was the right thing to do, Schmitt said.

"All I can tell you is it was a threat . . . against students," he said. "Nobody in particular, but students in general."

Schmitt planned to send a letter home to parents Thursday letting them know generally what had happened.

"We just need to get it through kids' heads that there are certain things you don't say and there are certain things you don't draw," he said.

- Staff writer Richard Danielson contributed to this report.

Starting July 1, jail time will accompany convictions that involve bodily harm.

By LUCY MORGAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 22, 2001


TALLAHASSEE -- Florida will be getting much more serious about dealing with domestic violence under a bill signed into law Monday by Gov. Jeb Bush.

Beginning July 1, those convicted of domestic violence will serve a minimum-mandatory five days in jail when convicted of causing bodily harm. They will be guilty of a felony if convicted of a second offense. "Making Florida a safer and healthier place for our families to live is a priority," Bush said. "Domestic violence is one of the biggest challenges facing the people of our state."

Patricia Smith, a Tallahassee woman who survived 17 years of domestic violence, stood at Bush's side as he signed the bill.

Tiffany Carr, director of the Coalition Against Domestic Violence, a state group that helps operate 38 Florida domestic abuse shelters, praised Bush for making a commitment to end domestic violence and for putting money in his budget that will go directly to shelters "for the first time in history."

Each domestic violence offender will be forced to pay a $201 surcharge on any court-imposed fine. Part of the money will defray the costs of mandatory jail sentences, and $85 will be used to fund shelters in the area where the abuse occurred.

Officials estimate the surcharge will add about $4-million a year to help shelters house and feed abuse victims.

In addition, the state will provide about $500,000 to publicize the tougher penalties.

Those convicted also will have to complete an abuser's intervention program to serve on probation or community control. More training will be required for child protection workers so they can help get abusive parents out of the home.

The Family Protection Act was Bush's top criminal justice priority this year and passed in the wake of reports that domestic violence crimes inched down by only 1 percent last year while other forms of serious crime dipped 8.1 percent in 2000.

State Rep. Bruce Kyle, R-Fort Myers, sponsor of the bill in the House and a prosecutor, said he thinks the public awareness campaign will help prosecutors and law enforcement officers.

State Sen. Anna Cowin, R-Leesburg, sponsor of the bill in the Senate, said the money for shelters will be of great assistance for those who struggle to feed, clothe and house women and children who seek help.

Domestic violence is a problem for all Floridians, Cowin noted.

"It affects the children who go to school with our children," she said. "And it is difficult to raise awareness of the problem."

Not everyone likes the new bill.

Pasco-Pinellas Public Defender Bob Dillinger said the law is likely to clog the courts even more because few defendants will plead guilty knowing they will face a mandatory five-day jail sentence.

- Staff writer Craig Pittman contributed to this report.

A federal grant would fund a secure psychiatric treatment site for the mentally ill charged with felonies.

By DEBORAH O'NEIL

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 4, 2001


They have thrown feces at guards, attempted suicide, attacked others and sometimes sat and cried endlessly in their cells. Every day, the Pinellas County Jail houses more than 300 inmates who need psychotropic medications to stabilize mental illnesses ranging from depression to schizophrenia.

"Jails have become the mental health facilities of the 1990s," Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger observed in a recent report.

Dillinger is behind an effort to reverse that trend in Pinellas County.

He is seeking $6.75-million in federal funding so Pinellas County can establish a secure psychiatric treatment facility for severely mentally ill jail inmates charged with felonies. Windmoor Healthcare of Clearwater is interested in accommodating the program and could provide about 40 beds in a section of its psychiatric hospital on U.S. 19, near the county jail.

The request spotlights a problem that mental health advocates and criminal justice officials say needs attention. As the mentally ill have been turned out of treatment facilities nationally, adequate resources to help them have not been established, advocates say. As a result, some end up homeless, without treatment and ultimately in trouble with the law.

Those who commit minor offenses can be treated at area mental health facilities. But Sheriff Everett Rice has long said that there is nowhere to bring the mentally ill charged with felonies, except jail. The proposal would change that.

"As someone who operates the jail, I know very well there are folks who don't belong there," Rice said. "I think it's a good idea."

Windmoor would not be a sentencing facility. It would be for mentally ill inmates awaiting a determination of competency or trial. The average stay would range from a couple of weeks to a few months.

The hospital would provide treatment at a cost of $2.95-million a year, and the sheriff's office would transport the inmates and staff the hospital with detention deputies for $2.5-million annually. Part of the money also would pay for mental health evaluators to work in the jail's looking section to screen the mentally ill when they arrive.

Dillinger also wants to set aside $45,000 a year to hire personnel who would help the mentally ill inmates find housing when they are released from jail. And he would provide $810,000 annually to help up to 150 released inmates pay rent.

The idea is to stop the cycle of mentally ill individuals becoming homeless, committing crimes, going to jail and being released back onto the street with nowhere to go, Dillinger said.

"The ultimate goal is they don't come back into the criminal justice system," Dillinger said. "They can have quality of life and they can be productive as citizens."

The request was submitted to U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson's office April 25, where it is still being reviewed, said Bryan Gulley, a spokesman for the senator. The office still is receiving funding requests from around the state, he said.

"We certainly support the concept," Gulley said. "We're going through all the requests and figuring in light of the tax package what realistically we are going to be able to support."

Dillinger's request would pay only for the first year of the program. But he said he hopes it would prove its worth to the federal government so that the funding would be renewed.

He plans to lobby for the money in July when he attends the annual convention of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Washington. If Pinellas receives the money, Dillinger said the program could be in place by January.

* * *

The Pinellas County Jail houses an average of 2,700 inmates a day. Nurses inquire about mental health during medical screenings when inmates arrive. Some inmates lie, and some have never had mental illnesses diagnosed, which are later diagnosed by jail doctors.

The mentally ill who have commited misdemeanors can be taken for psychiatric evaluation to mental health facilities like PEMHS, or Personal Enrichment through Mental Health Services, in Pinellas Park. But PEMHS is not designed to accept serious offenders, said executive director Thomas Wedekind, who supports the proposal.

"The prevalance of mental health problems at the jail really has amazed me. There's more and more people ending up coming in contact with law enforcement," Wedekind said. "The crux of the thing is to move everyone into a treatment setting and keep some of the controls of law enforcement."

Mental health advocates say the mentally ill don't belong in the jail to begin with. Mental illness is a chemical imbalance in the brain that is treatable, like physical problems, said Indian Shores resident Elliott Steele, president of the Pinellas chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

"If we were putting people in jail because the side effects of cancer had them loitering on the streets, how moral would that be?" said Steele, whose 26-year-old daughter has schizophrenia. "If it's cancer or any other illness, we're not in that situation."

Law enforcement officials and advocates for the mentally ill agree that untreated mental illness can lead to criminal behavior. Often, people stop taking their medications because they feel better, then they have a relapse, Dillinger said.

"Many times it's because voices are telling them to do it," said Dianne Steele, who is on the Florida Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, which issued a report in January calling for a statewide effort to divert the mentally ill from incarceration to treatment. "Delusions can send a person doing a lot of very bizarre things, and some of it falls into crime."

At the jail, the psychiatric inmates are housed in cells with bars in the maximum security D-wing. There is a full-time psychiatrist and two psychiatric nurse practitioners, along with counselors and part-time psychiatrists.

Maj. Ken Remming, jail director, said the staff does what it can to treat mentally ill inmates, but he recognizes it is not the ideal setting.

"The physical environment of the jail is not conducive to mental health treatment," Remming said. "No matter what we do to try to treat them, probably, it doesn't have the same effect as it would have if they were given the same treatment in a non-jail setting. That's part of the problem, treating people in this environment and trying to get the same effect as if you were in a hospital environment."

Windmoor Healthcare, formerly Horizons, is a 163-bed comprehensive psychiatric hospital for adults that offers mental illness and substance abuse programs.

President C. William Brett, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology, said the hospital has a two-story, 40-room unused section that could be dedicated for the inmates. The rooms have solid doors and are clustered around a common area.

Dillinger's proposal includes $300,000 to make one-time security renovations.

Windmoor would provide psychiatrists, nurses, social workers and psychologists and tailor treatment programs to the needs of the inmates at any given time. Brett said he does have concerns about how the hospital's other patients would respond.

"I don't want to be known as a jail," he said. "I think if we do this right, it won't happen. I think we can provide excellent service for the population in an isolated part of the hospital."

Forty beds, everyone agrees, would easily be filled. Dillinger said they could probably fill hundreds, so these will be reserved for those with the most serious illness.

"That's our start," Dillinger said. "It's better than what we've got."

Joaquin Martinez, a Spanish citizen who spent three years on Florida's death row, is acquitted of two murder counts during a retrial watched by Spain.

By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 7, 2001


TAMPA -- He spent three years on Florida's death row for killing a couple in their home near Tampa in 1995.

But Wednesday, 30-year-old Joaquin Martinez became a free man.

A jury took two hours to acquit the Spanish citizen of two counts of first-degree murder during a retrial that was watched closely by the Spanish media, the king of Spain and the pope.

After he was declared not guilty, Martinez's lips quivered, and he cried into his attorneys' shoulders.

Martinez's mother, Sara Martinez, sobbed. His family and some members of the Spanish media applauded and cheered. He was then led back into a holding cell for processing. As he waited, he turned to his attorney, Peter Raben.

"Thank you for giving me my life back," he told Raben.

Martinez was sentenced to death in 1997 for the murders of Douglas Lawson and his girlfriend, Sherrie McCoy-Ward, in their home in Clair Mel, east of Tampa. But the Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial because a detective in the first trial improperly told the jury he thought that Martinez was guilty and a prosecutor repeated the statement in closing arguments.

The Spanish media in Miami, where Martinez's family lives, and in Spain, where Martinez was born, devoured the story. Television reporters flew in from Spain for the retrial, the pope spoke out against the death penalty and Sara Martinez met with the king of Spain. Hundreds of thousands of
dollars was raised to pay for Martinez's defense. The family also hired Tampa jury consultant Harvey Moore.

"To go from death row to freedom is just mind-numbing," Moore said. "It's unbelievable."

Raben argued that prosecutors did not have any evidence against Martinez. No fingerprints or DNA was ever found.

"I was not surprised," Raben said of the verdict. "We had a lot of compelling defense evidence."

Jurors could not be reached for comment.

"Nobody should criticize the jury," said prosecutor Chris Watson. "The job is to see if we proved it, and this trial, this month, we didn't prove it."

Lawson and McCoy-Ward were both 26 when they died in October 1995. Lawson was shot several times with a 9mm pistol; McCoy-Ward was shot and stabbed more than 20 times as she tried to reach the front door to escape.

Lawson and Martinez once worked together at a warehouse, and prosecutors contended that Martinez went to the couple's house to buy marijuana.

Because of the passage of time, prosecutors were not able to call on the same witnesses in the retrial.

One died, another one refused to cooperate and another, Martinez's ex-wife, Sloane Martinez, essentially changed her story after testifying against Martinez during the first trial.

Sloane Martinez, portrayed by the defense in the first trial as a vengeful ex-wife, led authorities to Martinez. She helped them secretly tape conversations in which Martinez supposedly made incriminating statements. Later, however, she went on Spanish radio and television denying that her ex-husband ever admitted the killings.

The first jury convicted Martinez after listening to the tape and reading a transcript of it. It was revealed in this trial that the transcript was prepared by Lawson's father, William Lawson. He was the evidence manager for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

But for the retrial, Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett ruled the tape inaudible. A deputy was allowed to read only from parts of the transcript.

An hour into deliberations, the jury asked for more information about the tape, but Padgett told them the tape was not in evidence.

At 2:15 p.m., they had a verdict, which was broadcast live in Spain.

The victims' families, distraught over the outcome and the outburst by Martinez's family, quickly left the courtroom.

"We accept the verdict from the jury because that's the law of our land," said Alice Lawson, Douglas' aunt. "But we are very disappointed because we absolutely believe that he is guilty."

Although acquitted, Martinez didn't walk out of jail Wednesday. He was placed in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service because he was an alien who had been charged with a crime. Lawyers were working late Wednesday to speed through the paperwork required for his release. His family said Martinez plans to return to Spain.

Martinez's relatives exulted outside the courthouse, giving interviews to the Spanish media here and in Spain for three hours.

"I always said my son is innocent," Sara Martinez said to Raben, Moore and Dave Parry, another Martinez attorney. "But nobody believed me but you. Thank you for saving my son."

Sara Martinez wore the same outfit and the same hairdo she had when she met with the king of Spain in Miami in April to seek help for her son.

"I had a good feeling," she said. "He said he would fight for us."

Rates on federally guaranteed student loans will reach their lowest levels ever July 1, leading to lower payments.

By HELEN HUNTLEY

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 7, 2001


The cost of a college education is about to go down for a lot of people: Interest rates on federally guaranteed student loans will drop dramatically July 1 to their lowest levels
ever.

Although most of the savings will go to recent graduates, anyone repaying a variable-rate Stafford Loan will benefit, as will parents repaying PLUS loans.

The potential savings are huge, with more than $180-billion in federally guaranteed loans now in repayment. At the University of South Florida alone, students and their families took out $76-million in Stafford Loans and $1.7-million in PLUS loans in the 1999-2000 school year.

The interest rate on Stafford Loans issued since July 1, 1998, and currently in repayment will drop from 8.19 to 5.99 percent. The savings on a typical $10,000 10-year loan will amount to about $10 a month.

Rates on variable-rate Stafford Loans issued earlier also will fall, but not as far. The new rates on those loans will range between 6 percent and 7 percent, depending on the formula in effect when they were issued. The rate on parents' PLUS loans will drop from 8.99 percent to 6.79 percent.

"This is the lowest rate in the history of the student loan program, lower than even the 7 percent in place when the student loan program began in 1965," said John E. Dean, lobbyist for the Consumer Bankers Association.

The historic drop is occurring because market interest rates are the lowest they have been since the current rate formula went into effect in 1998. That formula adjusts rates every July 1 based on the rate for 91-day Treasury bills.

The new rates are only good for a year, but borrowers have the option of locking them in by consolidating their variable-rate loans into a fixed-rate loan.

Mark Bortel of St. Petersburg plans to be one of the first to take advantage of that opportunity. Bortel, 25, owes $12,874 he borrowed while earning a degree in social and political science from Florida State University.

He learned about consolidation when he went to work three months ago for Collegiate Funding Services, a student loan consolidator that employs about 400 people at a call center in Pinellas Park.

"I've been waiting since then for the rates to go down," he said. In addition to getting the current low rates, he plans to take advantage of Collegiate Funding's offer to cut his rate further if he signs up to make payments electronically.

There are no fees to consolidate student loans, but you can do it only once for the same group of loans. Once the rate is fixed, the borrower can't benefit from further reductions in the variable rate. Consolidation also stretches out the term of the loan, which can increase the amount of interest paid over the life of the loan, even if rates are lower.

Students who take out loans to pay for college leave with an average debt of $10,173 for an undergraduate program and $24,479 for a graduate program, according to the Lumina Foundation. At Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, the 886 students who took out loans last year borrowed an
average of $6,370.

More information about student loans and loan consolidation is available from Sallie Mae at (800) 448-3533 or http://www.salliemae.com and from Collegiate Funding Services at (888) 423-7562 or http://www.cfsloans.com.

- Helen Huntley can be reached at huntley@sptimes.com or (727)893-8230.

* * *

Here's a look at some student loan rates that will be reduced July 1. Rates vary depending on when the loan was issued and whether the borrower is still in school:

Stafford Loans

Issued since July 1, 1998:

Current: 8.19% (7.59%*)

New: 5.99% (5.39%*)

Issued July 1, 1995-June 30, 1998:

Current: 8.25% (8.25%*)

New: 6.79% (6.19%*)

Parents' PLUS loans

Issued since July 1, 1998:

Current: 8.99%

New: 6.79%

Issued earlier:

Current: 9.0% to 9.63%

New rates not yet available

* * *

* Rate if still in school

-- Source: Sallie Mae

School-sponsored trips to a Washington, D.C., jail were meant to scare some students with behavior problems, but what happened left parents and officials shocked.

[Times art: Teresanne Cossetta]


By JOHN BALZ

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 7, 2001


WASHINGTON -- It was meant to be a wake-up call. A group of adolescent boys with a history of fighting and mouthing off was sent to tour a city jail to see the grim fates of those who didn't learn to behave.

Teachers and guards paraded the 13 middle-schoolers into the cell block, where they watched a strip-search of adult inmates. Then, perhaps to drive home the point, nine boys were ordered to take off their clothes, bend over and cough, just like real prisoners.

The image of naked 14-year-olds on a field trip to the inside a grown-up jail is enough to make even the strictest parent cringe. So when news of the strip-search got out a week later, parents, school officials and other officers screamed, first in horror, and then at each other.

But the story was about to get uglier. It turned out that strip-searches of students were routine. The day after the boys' May 17 visit, teenage girls in another group were strip-searched and brought to the male side of the jail, where they were harassed by inmates.

Now the town that thought its biggest worry was some obscure Vermont senator fleeing the Republican Party finds itself struggling with the painful fallout of exposing children to the very adult side of lockdown.

Naturally, jail tours have been canceled. Warden Patricia Britton, three officers and three managers have been fired, with city council members calling for more pink slips. The principal of Evans Middle School in Northeast Washington has been placed on leave. Parents of the boys and girls involved say their children are too ashamed to finish out the school year, which ends June 19. Even the FBI has stepped in to investigate.

"It's very embarrassing to the Department of Corrections, the D.C. public schools and the mayor's office," said William Dupree, the union official representing officers at the jail. "The fact that it happened, it happened to kids. The Department of Corrections didn't do what it was supposed to do, the school board didn't do what it was supposed to do. It blew up."

Signs of the shrapnel are everywhere, with reputations wounded and nobody taking responsibility. In this soap opera there are no villains, only victims.

The kids weren't really troublemakers. The teachers were only trying to save the kids' futures. The corrections officers were just doing their jobs.

"I walk down the street in my neighborhood, and people who know me look at me funny," said Karl White, one of the guards who was let go by the department. "For the last few days I really haven't wanted to come out of my house."

Neither has Constance Redd's 14-year-old daughter, one of the students strip-searched.

"She doesn't really want to go to school," Redd said. "She doesn't want her friends to make fun of her. She's not the same little run-around child that she was."

The press has swarmed the city like Donald Trump at a beauty pageant, and it's no wonder. The story has nudity, minors, prison life and questionable decisionmaking. The D.C. Public Schools communication office is taking 40 calls a day and has stopped giving interviews to the national media. One family appeared on NBC's Today show for a sit-down with Matt Lauer.

Things would have been different in a place like, oh, Johnson County, Ind. In 1998, 13 boys on a hard-knock-life tour were forced to strip down to their underwear in the hallway of the juvenile detention center. One officer was fired for violating procedures, but the local newspaper didn't bat an eye. The community considered the whole episode a case of tough love.

"Being a very conservative state, we're more apt to say "Look, this kid did this, he deserves this,' " said Jim Higdon, director of the Johnson County juvenile center. "In Indiana they want to crack down. If you get in trouble, you pay the price."

In Washington, you pay a lawyer, who then files a $28-million lawsuit against the city for negligence, due process violations, emotional distress and a host of other legal claims. You
could even name him Wayne Cohen and build him like a distance runner.

Cohen, who represents the Redd family and six others, says everyone's to blame -- except his clients.

"Everyone seems to be pointing the fingers at each other," he said at a news conference.

Why? Because for 12 years everyone thought taking kids' clothes off inside a jail qualified as outside instruction. The D.C. jail began offering to school groups starting in 1989. But it didn't write official rules for how the tours should be conducted until last week -- after the scandal broke.

Most of the students who took the tours had previous discipline problems or in-school suspensions, so they were brought to jail in hope they wouldn't end up in . . . jail.

"This was not a field trip to Six Flags or the zoo," said Louis Cannon, president of the Washington, D.C., Fraternal Order of Police, who is familiar with the tours. "They weren't
going there to pet pandas."

The details of what went down on the block remain shady.

For instance, did the school teachers suggest the scare tactics, or did the guards use their own imaginations?

Each side says it was the other's idea. Still, it's clear that the Evans staff wanted to teach the kids a lesson. Two months before the visit, an employee at the boys' middle school
sent a letter to the corrections department.

"I am sending you this letter because of our youth," wrote Dorothy Simpkins, the suspension coordinator at the school. "They are beyond control. I would love them to tour Lorton Minimum Correctional Facility to experience the way they will live when they are punished by law. . . ."

How much did parents know about what might happen to their sons and daughters?

Each parent had to sign a permission slip authorizing the visit, but the piece of paper left out any mention of a possible strip-search.

Once inside the jail, were any of the youths touched?

One boy "didn't want to take off his shirt, and a big guard grabbed him by his shirt and took it off," 13-year-old Jose Ross told the Washington Post, which broke the story.

In a small bit of irony, the Department of Corrections can't conduct strip-searches against people arrested and held overnight unless guards suspect the inmate is hiding
weapons or drugs. The rule stems from a 1981 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is now considering another courtroom challenge.

Community outrage has been overwhelming. More than a hundred parents and residents squeezed into children's seats Monday night at Evans Middle School's auditorium and seethed at school officials. What could a child possibly learn from a field trip to prison? they wondered. "You mean we can't motivate our children any other way?" asked Don Foleen, a 48-year-old single father. "Then our school system is sick. Why don't we send them to the Supreme Court and
let them tour that?" The Post ran an editorial under the headline "Unacceptable," calling the strip-search "outrageous." In a reference to the city's reputation for twiddling its
thumbs, the editorial went on to label the officials' response as "familiar and by now predictable."

"We apologize for what happened here," Peggy Cafritz, the president of the D.C. Board of Education said Monday night. "We know what happened was wrong and we are going to do all that we can do to fix it." The only sliver of common ground for those involved is that underage nudity and prison don't mix.

"I want change out of this, so that it never has to happen to any other children again," said Redd.

Joaquin Martinez, once sentenced to die, leaves the Orient Road Jail a free man.

By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 8, 2001


TAMPA -- As Joaquin Martinez signed the paperwork for his release from jail Thursday, he started to cry and his hands began to shake.

"He was a very terrified young man," Dave Parry, one of his attorneys, said later. "It was the most scared I had ever seen him, other than when the verdict was read."

Martinez, a Spanish citizen who spent three years on Florida's death row before winning a retrial, had a nervous smile as he walked out of the Orient Road Jail shortly before noon Thursday, his arms wrapped around his parents.

He was greeted by a throng of reporters, most of whom had traveled from Spain to cover the retrial that ended in his acquittal Wednesday. Martinez's release was broadcast live on television in Spain, a country that raised $500,000 for his defense.

Martinez held on to his mother as Spanish reporters shoved microphones, tape recorders and cell phones in his face.

"I've dreamed of this day, but I never thought it would be like this," said Martinez, 29. "I want to cry. I want to laugh. But most of all, I want to see my daughters."

Martinez, who is a legal alien, was kept in jail overnight while the Immigration and Naturalization Service finished paperwork.

"I couldn't sleep," Martinez said, describing his last night in jail. "I was afraid that I would wake up and find out this was not true."

Martinez was sent to death row in 1997 when he was 25 after being convicted of killing Douglas Lawson and Sherrie McCoy-Ward in their Clair Mel home in October 1995. Lawson was shot several times with a 9mm pistol; McCoy-Ward was shot and stabbed as she tried to reach the front door to escape. Lawson once worked with Martinez at a warehouse and prosecutors contended Martinez went to his home to buy marijuana.

Martinez's parents, Joaquin and Sara Martinez of Miami, hired Peter Raben, an appellate lawyer in their hometown.

Last year, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a new trial because a detective improperly told the jury he thought that Martinez was guilty and a prosecutor repeated the statement in closing arguments.

After Raben won the appeal, the Martinezes asked him to defend their son in the new trial. Raben solicited the help of Parry, a former public defender now working in the Clearwater office of Bauer, Crider and Pellegrino.

Sara Martinez met with the king of Spain and won his support. The pope also spoke out against the case, because of the Catholic Church's opposition to the death penalty.

Martinez became a cause celebre in Spain, his father's birth country. A documentary and a movie based on the case are in the works.

He became the 22nd person condemned to die in Florida since 1972 who ultimately was released from death row because of a wrongful conviction. Florida leads the nation in such cases.

Spanish reporters interviewed Martinez at the Cuban Club in Ybor City after his release Thursday. Martinez was accompanied by the Spanish consul in Miami, Javier Vallaure. From the top floor of the Cuban Club, Martinez looked outside.

"I see clouds, I see trees," he said. "I feel like I am living in a dream right now."

While the victims' families still believe Martinez is guilty, he maintains his innocence and said he will now spend his life speaking out against false convictions.

"It's a nightmare," he said. "I do not wish it on anyone in the world."

After signing his release papers, he walked to the jail bathroom with Parry to collect himself. He looked in the mirror and saw his reflection for the first time in four years. In jail, the only thing close to a mirror was a metal pan.

"I've got gray hair," he said to Parry.

He said later that he was shocked at his appearance.

"This is me," he said he thought to himself sadly. "I was in shock."

Martinez will return to Spain with his parents on Saturday.

"It's been a long journey," he said. "I am going to make the most of my new life."

by ANNE GEARAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Police violate the Constitution if they use a heat-sensing device to peer inside a home without a search warrant, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

An unusual lineup of five justices voted to bolster the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and threw out an Oregon man's conviction for growing marijuana.

Monday's ruling reversed a lower court decision that said officers' use of a heat-sensing device was not a search of Danny Lee Kyllo's home and therefore they did not need a search warrant.

In an opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, by many measures the most conservative member of the court, the majority foundthat the heat detector allowed police to see things they otherwise could not.

''Where, as here, the government uses a device that is not in general public use to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a 'search' and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant,'' Scalia wrote.

While the court has previously approved some warrantless searches, this one did not meet tests the court has previously set, Scalia wrote.

The decision means the information police gathered with the thermal device -- namely a suspicious pattern of hot spots on the home's exterior walls -- cannot be used against Kyllo.

The court sent the case back to lower courts to determine whether police have enough other basis to support the search warrant that was eventually served on Kyllo, and thus whether any of the
evidence inside his home can be used against him.

Justices Clarence Thomas, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer joined the majority.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissenting opinion joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy.

At issue was how modern police technology fits into the court's long line of decisions on what should be considered a search requiring a court warrant.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that police must get bus passengers' consent or a search warrant before squeezing their luggage to see if drugs might be inside. The court also requires a warrant to put a ''bug'' in someone's home or in a telephone booth.

But the justices have said police do not need a warrant to go through someone's garbage left on the curb, fly over a backyard to see what is on the ground, or put a beeper on a car to make it easier to follow.

Kyllo was arrested in January 1992 and charged with growing marijuana at his home in Florence, Ore.

Police had been investigating his neighbor, but they focused on him after they trained a thermal imaging device on his home and saw signs of high-intensity lights. Using those images, electricity records and an informant's tip, police got a warrant and searched Kyllo's home, finding more than 100 marijuana plants.

Kyllo contended the marijuana plants could not be used as evidence against him because the police did not have a search warrant when they used the heat-sensing device. A judge ruled against him, and Kyllo pleaded guilty on condition he could appeal the search issue.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the use of the device, saying it should not be considered a search.

During arguments at the Supreme Court in February, Kyllo's lawyer told the justices that people should feel free to let down their guard at home without fear of the government unreasonably looking over their shoulder.

The Justice Department contended the heat-sensing device did not intrude on Kyllo's home but instead passively detected the heat that escaped from it, and the court's dissenters apparently agreed.

Police gathered only information available on the outside walls, and used ''a fairly primitive'' device to do so, Stevens wrote.

Using the Thermovision device ''did not invade any constitutionally protected interest in privacy,'' Stevens wrote.

The case is Kyllo v. U.S., 99-8508.

^------=

On the Net:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov 

Gov. Jeb Bush signs a measure that will let experts evaluate defendants. If found to be mentally retarded, they won't face the death penalty.

By JULIE HAUSERMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 13, 2001


TALLAHASSEE -- In a long-awaited victory for death penalty critics, Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law Tuesday a bill that prevents mentally retarded people from being executed.

Bush released a statement that said the new law provides "much-needed protection for the mentally retarded in the judicial process."

In Florida, debate has long raged about what standards courts should use to determine who is mentally retarded. Generally speaking, a person is thought to be mentally retarded if his or her IQ is below 70.

The new Florida law doesn't specify an IQ level. Instead, it allows two court-appointed experts to evaluate a defendant's mental capacity. If the defendant is found to be mentally retarded, he or she will not be subject to the death penalty.

The law doesn't apply to the 371 inmates currently on death row -- only to killers who are sentenced to death from now on.

But Marty McClain, a lawyer who represents death row inmates, predicted the new law could spark court challenges from current death row inmates.

Georgia passed a similar law in the late 1980s, and that state's Supreme Court later ruled that the ban on executing mentally retarded people could apply to current inmates, McClain said.

It's unclear how many mentally retarded people might be sitting on Florida's death row. Department of Corrections spokeswoman Jo Ellyn Rackleff said: "We are currently conducting IQ evaluations of death row inmates, and it is too early to give out any numbers."

The measure that Bush signed into law Tuesday is "a recognition that people with limited mental abilities -- who are functionally children, even though they are adults -- don't warrant the death penalty. They don't have the same moral culpability of someone who is smart and kills," McClain said.

Michael Radelet, a sociologist at the University of Florida, said at least one mentally retarded person has been executed in Florida: Arthur F. Goode III, who was executed in 1984 for killing a 9-year-old boy. One expert said Goode had the intellectual capacity of "a small child" and an IQ of about 60.

The Florida Legislature has tried to address the issue of executing the mentally retarded before but has not found consensus.

"There have been a number of attempts to pass a bill, but none went anywhere until this year when Gov. Jeb Bush backed it," McClain said.

The state House of Representatives passed the bill 110-1 last month, with Rep. Carey Baker, R-Mount Dora, the lone dissenter. The Senate passed the same bill unanimously.

Gov. Bush's decision to sign the bill comes a day after his brother, President George W. Bush, said, "We should never execute anyone who is mentally retarded."

Aides to President Bush said the president has not changed his position on the matter, even though his statement Monday seems to contradict his past positions. When President Bush was governor of Texas, he opposed legislation to bar execution of the mentally retarded and he maintained that stance during his campaign for president.

Florida now joins more than a dozen states that have the death penalty and also prohibit mentally retarded people from being executed. A similar bill passed the Texas legislature and is awaiting action by Gov. Rick Perry.

The U.S. Supreme Court, which long ago declared that states cannot execute people who are insane, may take up the issue of whether mentally retarded people should get the death penalty in a case scheduled for October, McClain said.

- Information from the Associated Press, the New York Times and Times researcher Dierdre Morrow was used in this report.

Man sentenced to life in prison for murder of elderly neighbor

The jury decided that he did not intend to kill victim when demanding money for crack cocaine.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 13, 2001


LARGO -- Annie Mae Stockton trusted her former neighbor and treated him like a grandson. So she let him into her St. Petersburg home without hesitation.

Reginald Bernard Coleman returned that trust, prosecutors say, by beating the 87-year-old woman to death with a Coke bottle so he could steal her money for a crack cocaine binge.

The jurors who convicted Coleman of first-degree murder last week took 15 minutes on Tuesday to recommend to a judge that Coleman didn't deserve to die for the killing.

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Phil Federico, who must give the jury recommendation great weight, then sentenced Coleman to life in prison without parole for the June 14, 1997, murder.

"We didn't think he intended to kill her when he went into her home," jury foreperson Magdalen DiGesare said in an interview, explaining why the jury rejected the death penalty. "He went in for money. And things got out of hand."

"I'm very happy," said Coleman's mother, Letha Gray. "I know my son didn't do this. But he'll be fine."

Coleman, 32, and his family were neighbors of Stockton for years before he moved to Atlanta. But Coleman returned to St. Petersburg in 1997 to turn himself in after learning he was wanted for a probation violation.

Coleman wanted one last crack binge before going to jail, prosecutors Thane Covert and Bill Loughery told jurors. Broke and unable to buy any, he went to Stockton's home on 13th Avenue S, tied her up and beat her to death.

At some point, Stockton's 70-year-old nephew, Willie Woodard, arrived with groceries. Coleman, prosecutors said, knocked him unconscious.

Woodard survived the blow but did not see who hit him. Coleman was convicted of attempted second-degree murder for hitting Woodard and sentenced to a concurrent 15 years for the charge.

Coleman escaped with up to $3,000 before eventually surrendering on the probation violation and getting a 15-year prison sentence.

Meantime, the murder went unsolved for two years. While in prison, Coleman bragged to a fellow inmate that he had gotten away with a murder. Later, he told his sister he was in the house when Stockton was killed but said an accomplice did it, the sister testified.

Defense lawyers Michael Schwartzberg, Sonny Im and Richard Watts said Coleman wasn't involved in the killing, pointing to unidentified fingerprints in the house.

By MIKE BRASSFIELD

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 13, 2001


ST. PETERSBURG -- A SWAT team accidentally started a fire Tuesday night in a house that police were raiding in a search for drugs.

No one was hurt, but flames and smoke caused significant damage to the two-story house at 1341 19th St. S, southwest of Campbell Park.

The fire started about 9:30 p.m. when SWAT officers set off a "flash bang" distraction device inside the house, said St. Petersburg police spokesman Rick Stelljes.

The device, which causes a loud noise and a bright flash of light, is intended to disorient criminal suspects and give officers an advantage.

The device also emits a brief burst of heat, and officials say it set fire to acoustical tiles in a makeshift recording studio in the house.

Neighbors said the first floor of the house doubled as a studio for reggae and rap artists.

A crowd of about 50 neighborhood residents gathered in the streets around the cordoned-off scene, complaining that police had set a fire with a tear gas grenade.

"They just shot a grenade in the house," said a man who gave his name as Don Johnson and said he worked in the recording studio. "Rastas hang out there. The police may have had a problem with that." Rastafarians are members of a Jamaican religious sect known to use marijuana.

Police say the SWAT team and narcotics officers were executing a search warrant, looking for suspects in a drug investigation.

"Upon entering the house, they found suspects scrambling, attempting to flee," Stelljes said.

Police say they used no tear gas. Officers threw the "flash bang" device into a dark room to protect themselves because they weren't sure whether anyone was inside, Stelljes said. He said it was unusual for the device to start a fire. Fire officials said the blaze spread quickly.

Police arrested two people in the raid.

The Cabinet move helps ex-cons get voting rights restored. Some say it's not enough.

By JULIE HAUSERMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 15, 2001


TALLAHASSEE -- With little advance notice, Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida's elected Cabinet changed the rules Thursday to make it easier for some felons to get the right to vote.

The action comes as Florida's longtime policy of banning felons from the voter rolls is under attack on several fronts, including three lawsuits against the state.

Critics said Thursday that the state's new rules don't go far enough, and that Florida should give all felons who have served their time the right to vote automatically, which is how it works in most other states.

The rules passed unanimously by Bush and the Cabinet affect people who have served their time, are non-violent and aren't classified as a habitual offenders. Those felons will be able to get their civil rights restored, including voting rights, without having to go to a hearing of the state's Executive Board of Clemency, a cumbersome and lengthy process.

The clemency board, made up of the governor and Cabinet, still has to sign off on the list of felons who want their civil rights restored, but the process will be faster. The state will also shrink a 12-page questionnaire that felons have to fill out to four pages, cutting back on paperwork.

The new rules also let people who still have outstanding court fines or costs of $1,000 or more to get their voting rights restored without a hearing. Felons who haven't paid restitution to their victims, however, won't be able to use the new streamlined process.

"We've seen people who haven't paid $48 in court costs not be able to get a nursing license," said Attorney General Bob Butterworth, the clemency board's only Democrat, who supported the changes. "I think this is going to do a lot to make sure people who can rehabilitate themselves can do so more quickly."

Repeat offenders could also use the new streamlined process, as long as their crimes were non-violent.

"A lot of the people who come here (to the clemency board) are drug addicts. They commit a whole multitude of offenses, yet, they get their life together," Bush said in explaining why multiple offenders should be allowed to use the new streamlined process.

It is unclear how many felons might be affected by the new policy. From 1998 to 2000, 36,450 people were released from Florida prisons, and 3,484 got their civil rights restored, said Bush spokeswoman Katie Baur.

"A large percentage don't even apply," Baur said.

Florida is one of just nine states that prohibit all felons who have served their time from voting. And the policy is drawing criticism.

During November's election, elections supervisors purged a list of felons from voting rolls, only to find out that some people -- mostly African-Americans -- were inaccurately labeled as felons and prevented from voting in the closest presidential election in history. Some elections supervisors found the list so untrustworthy that they refused to use it. In some cases, felons ended up voting illegally.

Two lawsuits -- one state and one federal -- are pending against Florida, charging that the state hasn't done what it is required to do to help felons restore their voting rights. The NAACP is also suing over the flawed voter list, saying it disenfranchised black voters.

The Legislature's black caucus tried this year to restore felons' voting rights, but the legislation died.

According to The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit group, Florida is home to the largest group of disenfranchised felons in the country -- some 400,000 people.

"When felons are released from prison, Florida continues to make them second-class citizens," said Randall Berg, executive director of the Florida Justice Institute, which is one of the groups suing the state. "It affects their ability to make a living, to get certain licenses and vote. They pay taxes, but they don't get representation. The governor and Cabinet should change this policy. We need to get in step with the rest of the nation and the rest of the world."

A judge orders the release of a retarded inmate in the face of DNA evidence and doubts.

©Associated Press

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 16, 2001


MIAMI -- A judge on Friday lifted the murder and rape convictions of a retarded man sent to prison 22 years ago, ordering his immediate release.

Miami-Dade prosecutors asked the judge to vacate Jerry Frank Townsend's convictions even though they believe he committed at least one of the two murders and the rape.

"Given the preferred deficiency in the state's evidence, a lack of trust in its evidence including the obtained confession, and in some cases what may very well be Mr. Townsend's outright innocence, it is abundantly clear that he is the victim of an enormous tragedy," Judge Scott Silverman said.

He said the release order would be faxed immediately to the Department of Corrections. DOC spokeswoman Debbie Buchanan said Townsend would be released from Polk Correctional Institution shortly after it receives the order.

A Broward County judge already had set aside four murder convictions after DNA evidence cleared Townsend of two of the crimes and a review of his confession left the other two in doubt.

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Thursday that even though she believes Townsend is guilty of rape and one of the Miami-Dade murders, the convictions have to be set aside because he agreed to plead guilty only because of the Broward convictions.

She said she cannot retry the cases because evidence has since been destroyed and the rape victim and witnesses cannot be found.

Townsend, 49, was arrested in 1979 and charged with raping a pregnant woman in daylight on a downtown Miami street. The victim and two witnesses, including a woman who said she hit him on the head with a bottle during the rape, pointed Townsend out to police a few blocks from the scene.

Detectives investigating the rape asked Townsend about the Miami and Fort Lauderdale murders. Townsend, who has the mental capacity of an 8-year-old and an IQ between 50 and 60, told detectives he committed the crimes.

Defense attorneys say he only told detectives what they wanted to hear to please them.

Miami police Assistant Chief James Chambliss said his department is no longer sure of its case against Townsend.

"It appears there's a possibility that the same person committed those crimes," Chambliss said. "If that's the case, if you find he didn't commit one, he didn't commit the other. . . . There are enough questions present that he may in fact be innocent."

But he does not believe the two detectives working the case, Bruce Roberson and James Boone, intentionally took advantage of Townsend's mental disability to get him to confess to crimes he didn't commit.

"Both of them have good reputations and are well thought of as good investigators. I think they thought they had the right guy. I don't think they did anything deliberate to railroad anybody," he said.

He agreed that the problem with the cases was questioning that led Townsend and Townsend's desire to please the detectives.

"Mr. Townsend liked these guys. He liked the cops, he wanted to be with the cops. They were his buddies and frankly that's a great tool if you get suspects to like you -- that's a good thing," Chambliss said. "He was trying to be helpful to them. . . . That's where the problem came up.

The law requires that a commission help train officers on how to better deal with minorities.

By Times staff and wire reports

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 21, 2001


TALLAHASSEE -- Sheriffs and police agencies will have to develop plans for making sure their traffic officers don't profile motorists by race under a bill signed by Gov. Jeb Bush.

According to a 1999 national survey, blacks and Hispanics are stopped more often than white drivers and are more than twice as likely as whites to be searched or have their vehicle searched after being pulled over.

The bill signed Tuesday by Bush passed the Senate and House unanimously and was supported by the Florida Highway Patrol, which has a program to keep troopers from engaging in racial profiling. It was pushed by Sen. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, who is black and a former state trooper.

The bill requires a state commission to develop a training program for officers on how to better deal with minorities. By Jan. 1, police agencies must have anti-racial profiling policies in place.

The FHP last year began tracking the race and ethnicity of motorists it stops in an effort to head off racial profiling.

In January, the last month for which statistics are available, 15.8 percent of motorists stopped by the FHP were black, slightly higher than their percentage of the state's population: 14.6 percent.

The FHP data do not track Hispanic motorists.

In Pinellas County, police chiefs signed a resolution in May banning race-based stops and searches. Administrators said they hoped the resolution helps change a perception that discriminatory enforcement actions occur.

The resolution urges each Pinellas police agency to adopt a policy ensuring that officers do not make decisions based on gender, sexual orientation, race, creed or national origin. A month earlier, the Tampa Police Department had implemented a policy barring officers from targeting someone based on race or ethnicity.

T-shirt jury tucks a jab in with verdict

Yes, she shouldn't have worn a SHERIFF shirt. Yes, she's technically guilty. But jurors ask: What are we doing here?


Kim Sult got in trouble for wearing this T-shirt into a convenience store last month.


By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 19, 2001


LARGO -- After five hours of deliberations Wednesday, six jurors found a St. Petersburg woman guilty of a misdemeanor for wearing a Pinellas sheriff's T-shirt and displaying an old sheriff's ID card to deputies.

Minutes later, outside the courthouse, jurors said their verdict didn't speak the whole truth.

"In our collective opinion, this case should never have been prosecuted by the state of Florida," said jury foreman Jeffrey Coleman as other jurors stood behind him.

"We feel there is a problem with this case ... " he said. "If the sheriff doesn't want these T-shirts on the street, then they need to clamp down" on those who sell them.

But jurors thought instructions on the law read by the judge left little choice but to convict Kimberly Sult, 24. Coleman, a civil attorney from Clearwater, refused to elaborate.

Moments before, Pinellas County Judge Michael Andrews sentenced Sult to one of the most lenient penalties available: He imposed $300 in fines and court costs and withheld a formal finding of guilt.

He gave her no probation and ordered no jail time, though she faced a maximum of one year on the misdemeanor charge.

"I do believe in displaying that ID card she specifically intended that the deputies who saw it would think she worked for law enforcement," Andrews said in sentencing Sult.

Sult is a former civilian detention employee at the Sheriff's Office who was fired in late 1999 for failing to report to work 39 straight days. She insisted she didn't wear the T-shirt to fool people into thinking she was a deputy.

"Be careful of what you wear in public or you'll end up in court," she said. "Hopefully, people will learn from this. I don't think everybody understands you can't walk around wearing this stuff."

It was June 14 when two Pinellas sheriff's deputies noticed Sult walking into a St. Petersburg convenience store. She was wearing shorts, sandals and a black T-shirt emblazoned with 5-inch letters: SHERIFF.

The T-shirt also was marked with the sheriff's star emblem and is something, prosecutors said, that is part of the uniform worn by many deputies.

Inside the store, Deputy Jerry Davis asked her, "Do you work for us?"

Davis said Sult lied to him by saying she still worked at the jail, even though she didn't any longer. Then she opened her wallet, he said, and showed her old sheriff's ID card.

Sult testified that the officer asked her whether she had ever worked for the sheriff. She said she never indicated to deputies she was still employed by the office.

Her attorneys, John Trevena and Patrick Calcutt, said the T-shirt is widely sold to the public by a local uniform store and at local flea markets. And the ID didn't identify Sult as a sworn deputy, they said. Deputies have a separate ID and badge.

Deputies charged Sult with wearing items that might fool a "reasonable" person into thinking she worked for law enforcement, leading to one of the most widely publicized trials in recent Pinellas history.

Over the past three years, only the racketeering trial of the Rev. Henry Lyons attracted more publicity.

Prosecutors didn't handle the case like any other misdemeanor, Sult's lawyers said.

Prosecutor Lydia Wardell, a misdemeanor supervisor for Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe, tried it and aggressively sought a conviction.

"She knew it was part of a uniform," Wardell told jurors of the T-shirt. "Even a 5-year-old would know that suggests she's a member of law enforcement."

Trevena said he might appeal the case to test the constitutionality of the state law under which Sult was convicted.

He said the judge's jury instructions didn't clearly explain to jurors that, in order to convict, they needed to find that Sult intended to deceive deputies.

"The instructions erroneously said that all she need do was wear the shirt to be convicted," he said. "But she had to have criminal intent."

Coleman, the jury foreman, said the Sheriff's Office needs "to take a look at itself" and review its policy about uniforms and sheriff's T-shirts and their availability to the public.

After jurors first stepped into the jury room to begin deliberations, Coleman said, "We all looked at each other and said, "Why is this case being prosecuted?' "

"I think (Sult) exercised bad judgment," he said. "But I don't think it was criminal in nature, and we're very happy to hear she's not getting jail time."

Jurors said charges never should have been filed against a man who said he just wanted to stop where he felt safe.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 3, 2001


LARGO -- Marcellus P. Morris was driving a short distance from his St. Petersburg home on Dec. 14 when he noticed a police cruiser behind him with its emergency lights on.

He didn't stop immediately.

Morris, 44, said he didn't feel safe. It was 6 p.m. and already getting dark. He slowed his 1989 Volvo and turned onto Juanita Way S. He drove by five houses at about 10 mph before pulling into his own driveway and halting.

To St. Petersburg police and Pinellas prosecutors, Morris committed a felony: fleeing and eluding, punishable by up to five years in prison.

On Thursday, a jury deliberated 15 minutes before acquitting Morris. Afterward, jurors criticized prosecutors for bringing the case to trial.

"We're sorry it ever went this far," said juror Len Dahlvik. "It was bad judgment on both sides. But I think the state shouldn't have taken it to trial."

Said juror Ken Hill, "This case was a waste of time and money."

Morris, an air-conditioning repairman for the University of South Florida, said, "I would have to be perfectly insane to flee a cop I know is behind me."

Morris said he simply thought it more convenient and safer to bring his car to a stop in his own driveway, where there is more light.

After the traffic stop, St. Petersburg Officer Meri Andrews testified that Morris needlessly escalated matters.

She said Morris yelled at her and accused her of wanting to shoot him. Morris yelled that Andrews, who is white, was only stopping him because he is black.

Andrews said Morris resisted handing over his wallet. Then he refused to hand over his insurance card and registration. Morris' wife, Ola, got them for officers.

Andrews accused Morris of hitting her hand as he tried to grab his license back. He denied doing so.

Finally, the officer told Morris to get out of his car. He refused. Andrews and another officer reached in to pull him out.

Andrews said Morris tried to move away from them. During a scuffle, Andrews said, she sprayed him with Mace.

Assistant Public Defender Robert Tager said officers overreacted.

"This law is about people willfully fleeing from officers," Tager said. "He did none of that. He drove 10 mph. That's his crime. . . . What kind of country is this that you can't drive five extra houses without being arrested and Maced?"

Prosecutor Rob McLaughin said the refusal to immediately stop was a "criminally unacceptable delay."

"No, he wasn't going 40 or 50 mph," the prosecutor said. "But what he did was cross the line. The officer was just trying to do her job."

By KATHERINE E. FINKELSTEIN


On the fourth day of yelling and pacing in the small, drab deliberation room, the jurors in a routine trial of a man charged with selling a $10 bag of heroin sent yet another note to the judge. Because of one holdout juror who was impervious to reason, the note stated, "tension is high, nerves are frayed and all minds are not sound."

Five minutes later, the holdout juror, who favored acquittal, sent the judge a note complaining that, in her view, jury duty seemed "worse than a prison sentence" because at least someone in prison gets three meals a day and a free education.

How had things gotten so bad, so quickly, in Room 1523 of State Supreme Court in Manhattan? Social views played a role. So did the inevitable personality conflicts. And the close quarters didn't help.

Of course, jury rage and distress of this nature are nothing new; consider the 1957 courtroom film "12 Angry Men." The court system has tried in recent years to relieve some of the tension by improving the trappings of jury duty, with shorter waits to be selected and more courteous clerks.

Despite those and other measures, New Yorkers who have deliberated on several recent juries say they have emerged feeling personally attacked, outraged and disillusioned. Court officers mention fistfights they broke up, chairs hurled out windows and jurors who screamed so loudly they were heard on other floors. In some cases, the officers say, jurors simply stroll off and have to be brought back; one juror leapt from the jury bus to get out of deliberations.

Some judges and lawyers who see increasing conflict in the jury room attribute this to several new factors, from longer trials and heavier sentences facing defendants to more intense news coverage and increased cynicism after the O. J. Simpson acquittal. One Manhattan judge said that as more educated professionals are required to sit on juries and can no longer get exemptions, the social and political views in the jury room have become more varied and the rancor during deliberations has increased accordingly.

In the drug trial last March in Room 1523, the jury forewoman, Elaine C. Cora, described an atmosphere of personal attacks in which even the quietest person in the room blew up, shouting "shut up" at the holdout juror. "It was such a bad experience that I don't ever want to go through it again," said Ms. Cora, a secretary for a community board in the Bronx. The case ended in a hung jury, and the judge declared a mistrial.

Similar scenes are surfacing in many parts of the country. Actual data on juror conflict is scant, in large part because jury deliberations are private and viewed as sacrosanct, and few studies have been done. But in recent trials across the nation, jurors have complained about being bullied and humiliated during deliberations.

Legal experts say that more jurors are now being reprimanded or dismissed by judges for ignoring evidence or not following rules. In an extreme case, five black jurors gouged the eye of a holdout white juror and accused him of racism, according to a judge in a 1996 survey on juror conduct, the most recent one conducted.

That sort of conduct has led courts around the country to give jurors booklets on how to debate while being courteous and even-tempered. Other courts are focusing on reducing juror stress, using suggestions laid out in a 1998 study by the National Center for State Courts. These include giving jurors helpful hints on how to deliberate and making them more physically comfortable.

Another source of conflict comes from jurors who increasingly allow their politics or their consciences to enter the deliberations, legal experts say. That practice has led to open warfare in a number of jury rooms.

One case in May involved a juror in Las Vegas at the trial of Margaret Rudin, charged with murdering her husband, Ron Rudin, a real estate developer. The juror, Coreen Kovacs, told fellow jurors that she did not believe that the laws in the case were just and urged the jury to ignore them, said John J. Momot, the defense lawyer in the case.

The jurors then sent out angry notes to the judge. The foreman, Ronald Vest, a special-education teacher, asked that Ms. Kovacs be removed, contending that she "isn't thinking clearly, rationally or logically. Please help!" Mr. Momot later received a statement from Ms. Kovacs, who described the conflict in the jury room.

After the jury sent back a unanimous guilty verdict, Ms. Kovacs stated publicly that she had been coerced. Several other jurors then denounced her publicly. 

Neither Mr. Vest nor Ms. Kovacs returned several telephone calls seeking comment.

Like many defense lawyers, Mr. Momot likes conflict in the jury room. He says it can help to sharpen differences and flush out potentially exonerating information. "The positive side is that everyone is paying attention," he said. "They're not just like a herd of sheep."

Experts say tension in the deliberation room is particularly high in cases involving controversial statutes, like death penalty laws, California's "three strikes" laws for repeat offenders and New York's Rockefeller-era drug laws, which mandate long prison terms. The weight of these deliberations can greatly increase jurors' stress, the experts say, and some refuse to convict in cases where they believe the punishment exceeds the crime.

The Manhattan jurors in Room 1523 were grappling with the Rockefeller drug laws as they battled over the fate of the defendant, Calvin Baker, who was facing a sentence of four to nine years in prison if convicted as a repeat drug seller.

After a mistrial was declared, the holdout juror, Paula Thomson, posted $10,000 in bail for Mr. Baker, who is to be retried this fall. She also befriended him, retained a new lawyer for him and took him to rallies to protest the Rockefeller drug laws.

Ms. Thomson said she had not heard of the Rockefeller drug laws at the time of the trial, but believed generally that drug laws were not equally enforced along racial lines. She said that while she had stuck to reason, other jurors had personally attacked her, asking if she had any friends or could hold a job. "They spent a lot of those three days talking about what was wrong with me," she said. 

By JOANN LOVIGLIO .c The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA (Aug. 10) - What if they summoned a jury and nobody came?

As judges across the nation increasingly face that question, scofflaw courts are being set up to punish no-shows with fines and even jail time.

``People have all kinds of excuses, including 'the dog ate my summons,''' said Philadelphia Common Pleas President Judge Alex Bonavitacola, who presides over the city's year-old juror scofflaw court and metes out fines from $25 to $250 and community service sentences.

``When we summon you, we're not being capricious; we need you and you better show up,'' he said.

Judges say the shrinking turnout for jury pools sometimes delays trials. Courts have long had statutes that permit fines and jail time for no-shows, but the rules have largely not been enforced.

There are no clear figures on turnout rates nationwide, but many communities report that between 30 percent and 50 percent of people summoned actually appear for jury duty.

``We've had a lack of interest in civic responsibility for some time, and it's growing,'' said Temple University psychologist Frank Farley. ``I think the decline in civic engagement points to a growing disconnectedness people feel to their community and to each other.''

In Baltimore and Idaho, some scofflaws have been sent to jail for a day. No-shows are called in to remind them of the importance of jury duty.

A high juror scofflaw rate prompted Milwaukee court officials last fall to seek criminal prosecution of the no-shows.

Similar measures have been taken in Dallas, Denver, Albuquerque, N.M.; Raleigh, N.C.; and Brockton, Mass. And it appears that scaring scofflaws into civic responsibility is working, at least in Philadelphia.

``Right after the two sessions we had last year, we did get an uptick in response,'' Bonavitacola said. ``Then it starts to slide off a bit, so we need to have scofflaw courts on a regular basis to keep it fresh in people's minds.''

To get 300 people to appear daily for jury duty, Bonativacola's court issues about 1,500 summonses. In Lancaster County, about 3,000 of the 10,000 people who are called annually fail to appear.

Every week, as many as 30 people are called before Lancaster County Common Pleas President Judge Michael Georgelis to explain why they haven't responded to their jury summonses.

He said 99 percent have ``unacceptable'' excuses - like ``I forgot.''

``Some even have the gall not to show up to explain themselves,'' he said. ``That's when a bench warrant is issued.''

This month, Georgelis found nine people guilty of contempt of court and sentenced them to two days in jail and $300 in fines. He also ordered them to report for jury duty next month.

University of Pennsylvania law professor Edward Rubin believes people don't shirk jury duty out of disrespect.

``It's more pragmatic: This is a big economic burden for lower-income people who don't work for a big company that pays them when they're on a jury,'' he said. In Philadelphia, for example, jurors receive $9 a day compensation - not enough to park their car for the day - and no reimbursement for child care or other expenses.

Farley also pointed out that people are busier than ever with work and family obligations, and the speed of cyber-society makes the idea of jury duty boring.

``There's a sense that courts are clogged and move slowly so people are thinking, 'Oh, I can't just sit around in a room all day for nothing,''' he said. ``People feel that they have too many obligations - so they don't vote, they don't want to be jurors, they don't get involved in their
communities.''

A commission created to investigate Washington state's high no-show rate found that driver and voter databases used to glean juror addresses were often outdated and inaccurate.

Many who claimed they never received a jury summons were telling the truth, said David Brody, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Washington State University and a commission adviser.

``Updating lists, paying for parking or providing child care can run into a lot of money over time,'' Brody said. ``So the question is, is it worth the money or not?''

AP-NY-08-10-01 1432EDT

The challenge would go before the judge who threw out Pinellas Park's juvenile curfew in 1998.

By ERIC STIRGUS

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 14, 2001


LARGO -- The days of the controversial juvenile curfew in Largo may be numbered.

An attorney representing a teenager arrested for violating the city's curfew and other charges is seeking a hearing to argue that Largo's curfew is unconstitutional, city officials have learned. What has city officials concerned is that the hearing would be in front of Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court Judge Peter Ramsberger, who struck down Pinellas Park's juvenile curfew in 1998.

City officials declined to discuss details of the arrest because it involves a juvenile. The attorney representing the teenager did not immediately return a telephone call for comment.

Largo's curfew is patterned largely after the one in Pinellas Park, which, in 1997, became the first municipality in Pinellas County to enact such an ordinance. Pinellas Park's curfew is on hold while it's being appealed.

"I assume it is going to be the same challenge," Largo City Attorney Alan Zimmet said of the hearing, which is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 5.

Although city commissioners voted 6-1 in favor of creating a curfew in April 1998, City Manager Steven Stanton thinks as many as five commissioners would now vote against the ordinance.

"I don't think the majority of the commissioners would want a legal challenge," he said Monday afternoon. "I suspect there's not enough support among the majority of the commission today."

The ordinance may be discussed at tonight's 5 p.m. commission meeting, Stanton said.

Two of the commissioners who voted in favor of the ordinance, Thomas Feaster and Jim Miles, are no longer on the city commission.

Largo's curfew has been hailed by its supporters as a powerful tool in curbing youth crime and protecting children. Juvenile crime has dropped by 40 percent in several categories, according to police department figures.

"I think it has been pretty useful," said City Commissioner Jean Halvorsen. "A lot of our problems have been solved by it."

The curfew prohibits anyone younger than 18 to be in a public place between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. during the week or between midnight and 6 a.m. on weekends. The curfew also allows police to round up unsupervised young people during school hours. A teenager caught violating the curfew for the first time is given a warning and usually performs some community service. Multiple violators are charged with a second-degree misdemeanor. If convicted, they must pay a fine of up to $500 and can be sentenced to as long as six months in jail.

Some opponents of the curfew argue it is discriminatory toward young people. Others say it should be parents' responsibility to monitor their children, not the government's.

"The government is not the solution to everything," said City Commissioner Mary Laurance, who voted against continuing the curfew in January 2000. "The more you take from parents, the more you lean on government, and that concerns me."

Police say they caution their officers to act responsibly when it comes to the curfew. For example, officers are strongly discouraged from looking for violators at 11:02 p.m. Many of the violators are performing other criminal acts, they say. Each case is reviewed by a supervisor.

Andy Hill, a Largo police sergeant who is in charge of the department's office of youth services, thinks the curfew has worked well.

"We don't see them in the malls," he said. "We're not picking them up for retail theft. Obviously, that's accomplishing what it needs to do."

-- Information from Times files was used in this report.

After a rape victim was arrested on warrants, Chief Goliath Davis changes how such cases are handled.

By MIKE BRASSFIELD

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 15, 2001


ST. PETERSBURG -- Two months after police arrested a rape victim wanted on minor criminal charges, the St. Petersburg Police Department is taking steps to prevent the same thing from happening again.

On June 4, a 29-year-old woman told police that a stranger surprised her from behind as she walked on 49th Street N shortly after midnight. The woman said the stranger knocked her to the ground, raped her in some bushes and tried to strangle her with a cord.

A police detective who interviewed the woman found she was wanted on three outstanding arrest warrants. The woman had not paid a fine for driving under the influence, and she had not appeared in court to face charges of not having a dog license and not having her two daughters attend elementary school.

Police took the woman to jail. The way police officials saw it, the detective had no choice but to arrest her. But the incident prompted a re-examination of how police handle such cases.

St. Petersburg police Chief Goliath Davis III has instituted a new policy for officers and detectives who encounter victims who are wanted on warrants.

Now, the officer or detective must notify a high-ranking police supervisor who will relate the facts of the case to a prosecutor with the State Attorney's Office. The prosecutor will then notify a judge, if such a step is deemed necessary, so the judge can decide whether the crime victim should go to jail. Another option would be to release the person on their own recognizance, with the warning that he or she should deal with the arrest warrants soon.

Pinellas Circuit Judge Brandt Downey III, the administrative judge for the judicial circuit's criminal division, said he had no problem with the new policy.

"A circuit judge is on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year," Downey said. "There isn't any problem with contacting a judge at 2 in the morning."

In the case of the rape victim who was wanted on minor charges, Downey would have told police not to take her to jail. Downey added that such cases are exceedingly rare.

"If the warrant was for a felony charge, my feeling on it might be different," Downey said. "If the person was wanted for a robbery or burglary, I'd have to say, "Gee, I'm sorry, but you'll have to take that person into custody.' "

Recent coverage

Victim of rape sent to jail on warrants (August 10, 2001)

Investigators heard complaints from people who said they were terrorized by the pair, now out on bail.
By CARY DAVIS

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 22, 2001


They wore black SWAT team gear. Carried badges, handcuffs and guns. Drove a white Ford Crown Victoria with police stickers. They called themselves a "fugitive recovery unit," bounty hunters who tracked down elusive bail jumpers.

But despite all the trappings, authorities say there was one thing Thomas Cunneen and Charles Berry didn't have: licenses that allowed them to work as bail bondsmen.

Cunneen, 37, of Zephyrhills and Berry, 49, of Holiday turned themselves in Sunday to face felony charges of violating a law that requires all bail bondsmen to be licensed by the state, the Pasco County Sheriff's Office reported.

Investigators with the Sheriff's Office and the state Department of Insurance started looking into Cunneen and Berry more than six months ago after getting complaints from local bail bond companies and people who said they were terrorized by the pair.

"We received complaints about their actions and their attire," Jon Powers, a Sheriff's Office spokesman, said Tuesday.

Powers said Cunneen and Berry worked as bounty hunters for Coast to Coast Bail Bonds, which has offices in Pasco, Hernando and Pinellas counties. An employee with Coast to Coast said the owner was out of town and unavailable for comment.

It wasn't clear Tuesday how many people Cunneen and Berry had apprehended.

The Department of Insurance, which regulates the bail bond industry, declined to comment, saying the investigation was ongoing.

Powers said the pair carried business cards listing their occupation as "licensed surety agents." On the back of their Crown Victoria, Powers said, was a sticker of a gold badge with the words "Pasco County Sheriff's Office Community Policing."

The word "AGENT" was emblazoned on their black jackets, Powers said.

Powers didn't know if prosecutors were considering charging the pair with impersonating law enforcement officers.

The assistant state attorney handling the case could not be reached for comment.

Cunneen and Berry were released from the county jail in Land O'Lakes after posting $2,500 bail Monday.

Reached at home Tuesday, Cunneen declined to comment. Berry could not be reached.

- Cary Davis covers courts in west Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6236, or toll free at (800) 333-7505, ext. 6236.

The nominating commission received 12 applications for a county judgeship that will be based in the West Pasco Judicial Center.

By Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 1, 2001


Dozens of area lawyers have thrown their names in the hat for three newly created judgeships in the 6th Circuit, which includes Pasco and Pinellas counties.

The 6th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission soon will begin interviewing applicants before settling on three finalists for each opening. Gov. Jeb Bush will make his appointments from the lists of finalists.

The nominating commission received 12 applications for a new county judgeship that will be based in the West Pasco Judicial Center. Applicants for that judgeship are: James Campbell, Barbara Casey-Goiran, Philip Cohen, Frank Grey II, Paul Kaleel, Declan Mansfield, Russell Marlowe, Mike Murburg, Beverly Plummer, Bruce Prezepis, Debra Roberts and Stephen Rushing.

Thirty-five lawyers applied for a circuit judgeship that will be based in Pinellas County. They are: Linda Allan, Michael Andrews, William Bennett, George Brown, David Carter, Shawn Crane, John Day, Dan Duryea, Dyril Flanagan, Joseph Flannery, Roberta Flowers, Walter Fullerton, John Helinger, Allyson Hughes, Paul Kaleel, Vicki Kaufholz, Joe Lovelace, J. Thomas McGrady, Robert "Bo" Michael, Robert Morris Jr., Mike Murburg, M. Malinda Ottinger, John Renke III, James Runyons, Sean Scott, William Slicker, Jack St. Arnold, Wesley Stacknik, Andy Steingold, N. John Stewart Jr., John Tuthill, Joan Vecchioli, William Vinson, Keith Warshofsky and Amy Williams.

Thirty lawyers applied for the county judgeship opening in Pinellas County: William Bennett, George Brown, David Carter, Pamela Cichon, Shawn Crane, Robert Eschenfelder, Teresa Fitzpatrick, Dyril Flanagan, Joseph Flannery, Kandice Friesen, Donald Horrox, Sonny Im, Gay Inskeep, Miriam Irizarry, Vicki Kaufholz, Joe Lovelace, Walter Manning, Robert "Bo" Michael, M. Malinda Ottinger, Manuel Penton Jr., William Pontrello, Thomas Ramberger, Frederick Schaub, Sean Scott, Wesley Stacknik, Andy Steingold, Dorothy Vaccaro, William Vinson, Jeffrey Worman and Rita Young.

By DAVID KARP

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 15, 2001


TAMPA -- Gov. Jeb Bush appointed two women Friday to the 2nd District Court of Appeal.

Federal prosecutor Virginia M. Covington, 46, and lawyer Patricia Kelly, 44, were named by Bush to join the state appeals court, which reviews cases from 14 counties including Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco.

The appointments mean the 14-member court will have the most women in its history. Until the appointments Friday, the court had one woman on it. Only two women have ever served there in its 44-year history.

Covington, whose mother left Cuba in 1953, speaks fluent Spanish and has volunteered legal work for the Hispanic Needs and Services Council.

Chief of the asset forfeiture section at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa, Covington also has lectured internationally on the subject. When she took over the section in 1989, she decided to pursue asset forfeiture as a criminal matter, rather than trying to seize assets through civil procedures.

"It really had never been done that way," said Gregory Kehoe, who worked with Covington at the U.S. Attorney's Office. "Now everyone takes it for granted."

Covington, who has worked as a federal prosecutor since 1983, said she considered her appointment "an incredible honor."

"It's a wonderful feeling," she said.

Kelly, a lawyer in private practice who specializes in appellate law, said she was excited about her appointment. Kelly worked at the court as a staff attorney between 1989 and 1993.

"I am going to work hard to do a good job," Kelly said. "I am determined to do a good job."

Covington replaces former Judge David Patterson; Kelly will take the seat held by Judge Edward Threadgill.

City adopts rule banning urination on public property

The emergency ordinance targets a man who reportedly dumps urine at a park daily.

By LEONORA LaPETER

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 19, 2001


ST. PETERSBURG -- The City Council passed an emergency ordinance Thursday banning public urination and defecation on city property -- all in response to a man who dons goggles, feeds pigeons and then dumps his urine in a public park.

The man and his wife, who were not identified at the council meeting Thursday, visit a park at Sunset Drive and Central Avenue every morning. They sit back-to-back on a blanket dressed in sweatsuits, don goggles and set out bird seed. Pigeons swarm all over them, some from the sky, others apparently arriving with them in their car.

Later, the man takes off his sweatsuit, urinates into a container in the car while his wife holds a blanket around him. Then they dump the urine into the park, said Neighborhood Partnership director Susie Ajoc.

Neighborhood groups have complained about the couple's activities. Someone even took a videotape of the couple to show public officials. The police have talked to the couple.

The park is in District 1, City Council member Richard Kriseman's district. He said he began researching the subject and discovered the city has no law banning public urination and defecation on city property.

"Aside from being disgusted with the idea . . . we all live here and that someone is doing this on property where we all go, where our children play, I felt we needed to do something about it," he said.

Council member John Bryan said he hated to write an ordinance for one individual.

He was also concerned about people who might be playing soccer or some other sport at a city park with no bathroom facilities, who might not be able to wait until they found a restroom. He didn't want the law to apply to that situation.

"I understand Mr. Bryan's concern," said City Council member Bill Foster. "But if it's a one-time deal, it's usually over before the police get there."

Council members also made sure the law would not apply to children 13 years old or younger.

The emergency ordinance would last until Nov. 9. City Council members hope to hold a public hearing and pass a permanent ordinance. Violators could be subject to as much as a $500 fine.

Kriseman also suggested the city look at passing a law banning residents from dumping large amounts of bird seed at city parks.

But he didn't want to prohibit a little old lady from feeding the birds at Crescent Lake, so he referred the suggestion to a city subcommittee for discussion.

By editorial)

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 19, 2001


Berry Kessler used to carry the title of oldest man on Florida's death row. The Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office wants to restore the dubious distinction to the 80-year-old man.

Kessler sits in a federal prison, serving a life sentence without parole for his role in the 1991 contract killing of his business partner, Hudson cabinetmaker John Deroo. But having an octogenarian locked up for life isn't good enough for prosecutors. They intend to seek the death penalty for Kessler when he is retried in Pasco County on the state charge of first-degree murder.

It is a waste of time and money. A successful conviction and death sentence triggers automatic appeals that take, on average, 11 years to exhaust. Even if Kessler were to outlive his appeals, the likelihood that some future Florida governor will sign a death warrant for a man in his 90s is remote. The oldest Florida inmate to be executed was 72, and that was 40 years ago.

So, why bother?

"Sometimes you've just got to do the right thing," Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe told Times staff writer Cary Davis.

McCabe's thinking isn't disagreeable, just his definition of "right thing." Making sure a convicted killer is never released is appropriate punishment. Asking for the chance to stick a lethal injection into a sickly old man is not.

A federal jury convicted Kessler in 1994. A Pasco jury did likewise in 1996 and voted 9-3 for the death sentence. Circuit Judge William Webb followed the jurors' recommendation, but the Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction and sentence in 1999, saying Webb should have questioned jurors individually about pretrial publicity. A new trial date has not been set, but it is expected to be held next year.

This exercise is futile. It might be more understandable if Kessler's federal conviction were in danger of being overturned. It is not. He has lost his federal appeals to date and even Kessler's attorney said he has little chance at succeeding.

Which makes the push for a death sentence even more curious. There is no guarantee federal authorities will release Kessler to Florida's death row. That was the case after the first trial. Kessler remained in federal prison even with a Florida death sentence hanging over him.

Kessler, according to testimony during his first trial, arranged the murder in an insurance fraud scheme. Deroo was shot six times in the face. The trigger person has not been caught.

Kessler wants the trial, according to his attorney, for another chance to clear his name. He is entitled to due process. But even the victim's family questions the wisdom of pushing the death penalty considering Kessler's advanced age.

They are right. It is not an advocacy for compassion. Just common sense.

On Saturday, November 10, from 10 a.m. to noon, Senator Les Miller's office, the League of Women Voters of the St. Petersburg Area, the African American Voters Research and Education Committee, and others will sponsor a Town Hall Meeting at Lakewood United Church of Christ to educate former offenders and their friends and to assist them through the cumbersome process of applying for restoration of their civil rights, including the right to vote and the right to hold a passport.

Deborah Clark, Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections, as well as representatives of the state clemency office and parole boards will clarify the process. Volunteer attorneys will help applicants to obtain the required information and to complete the required forms and procedures to regain their voting rights in the state of Florida. At 9 a.m., a volunteer workshop is offered so you can participate in this important project.

Florida is one of 14 states that do not automatically re-instate offenders' rights after they have completed the terms of their sentences. Instead it requires a complicated process, costly to taxpayers, involving the Governor's Office of Executive Clemency. Last year, only 1.024 Florida citizens were able to successfully complete the process. It is estimated that over 400,000 Floridians are being deprived of their rights.

Please publicize this event widely so that all who need to know about it will be able to avail themselves of it.

Pinellas County Judge Michael Andrews says he encourages haircuts in hopes defendants will clean up their lives. Some question the practice.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 7, 2001


LARGO -- Darian A. Carter, wearing the shoulder-length dreadlocks that took him 10 years to grow, stood before a county judge, facing jail time for marijuana possession.

"Mr. Carter, I'll make it no jail if you cut your hair," Pinellas County Judge Michael Andrews said, according to an Oct. 9 court transcript.

Carter, 23, refused. At his sentencing three weeks later, Andrews asked, "Are you like Samson? Are you going to lose your strength if you cut your hair?"

Carter took 45 days in jail.

It was another bad hair day in Andrews' misdemeanor court, where the judge acknowledges shaggy, unkempt defendants will sometimes be offered a sentencing break in exchange for a visit to a barber.

In Carter's case, Andrews said he wasn't completely serious. The judge said he might have given him a break for a trim, perhaps a reduced fine. But Andrews said Carter, who has prior drug convictions, was going to jail no matter what.

"If you've got long hair, that's fine," Andrews said. "But put a comb in it."

Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger said the judge's deals are inappropriate in a courtroom where justice is supposed to be blind to physical characteristics.

"I don't see how hair can play a role in sentencing," said Dillinger, whose office didn't represent Carter. "It's not a part of sentencing. Is he going to make women wear their hair a certain way?"

Andrews, 38, said he is simply trying to get some defendants to clean up their act, not just with a neat haircut but also by encouraging proper attire. If they do, it can change their life, helping them find work and make a good impression, Andrews said.

"If a person makes an effort to improve his life, I take that into consideration at sentencing. We should encourage that," the judge said. "I don't do it often. And I've never forced anyone to get a haircut. I sometimes suggest it. They're under no obligation."

Carter said his attorney, Grady Irvin, tried to talk him into getting the haircut between his change of plea and sentencing last month. In an interview, Irvin said he never doubted that Andrews was joking.

Carter, in a telephone interview Tuesday from the jail, said, "At first, I was surprised. Then I was wondering, what's my hair got to do with it? I couldn't do it. I felt like I was being discriminated against because of my hair."

The judge admitted he was completely serious in the case of Omar Xavier Lawrence, 18, a defendant with a tall Afro who appeared before him on a charge of leaving the scene of an accident.

Prosecutors offered Lawrence a plea deal calling for six months' probation, in addition to $225 in fines and court costs.

"If he's willing to cut his hair, I'll drop $100 off the fine and court costs," the judge said in court on Thursday.

The defendant's mother, who did not identify herself, called out from the audience, "It's going to be cut today, right, Omar?"

"I just want to point out, he ain't even trying to hear it," the judge said. "All right, I think he's not going to cut his hair."

"It will be cut, won't it, Omar?" the mother said.

Andrews then recommended a Tarpon Springs barber. "You all know Johnny's Barber Shop?"

If Lawrence got his trim, he didn't return to court to prove it, and he could not be reached for comment. He was ordered to pay the full $225.

"I've not heard of anyone doing something like this before," said Emily Baker, a former judge and ethics professor at St. Petersburg College. "Justice is often what a judge says it is. It's a little off-beat version of justice."

Andrews said he tries to encourage people to get their lives together and recognize that their appearance makes a difference in finding a job or showing a judge that they take their situation seriously.

"I'd never ask someone who was a Rastafarian wearing dreadlocks for religious purposes to get a haircut," Andrews said.

Most often, he said, it's the defense attorneys, especially Dillinger's office, asking him to take improved appearance into consideration upon sentencing.

"If there's something wrong with it, I fail to see it," Andrews said. "I'm willing to be enlightened."

Calling it a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a judge orders the state to refund some $30-million collected since 1992. 

By LUCY MORGAN and MELIA BOWIE © St. Petersburg Times, published November 20, 2001 


TALLAHASSEE -- A Miami judge has struck down Florida's $15 fee for handicapped parking permits and ordered the state to refund money it has collected since 1992. 

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Amy Steele Donner ruled the $15 fee violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Her decision last week could force the state to refund up to $30-million to thousands of people. 

Since 1992, federal law has required states to issue handicapped parking permits without charging a fee, but Florida continued to charge up to $15 per permit. The federal law prohibits public agencies from charging a special fee to give access to the disabled. 

During 1999-2000, the most recent year for which records are available, the state issued 177,428 handicapped parking permits. Disabled veterans and those receiving Supplemental Social Security income qualify for discounted permits. 

The state does not know if it will appeal the ruling. 

"We just got a copy of the ruling today," said Bob Sanchez, spokesman for the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. 

The news was already being greeted by motorists. 

"Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!" exclaimed Jerome Brown. 

Brown has a disabled parking tag because he has trouble walking. On Monday, he was pulling up to the curb outside a K-Mart on 34th Street N in St. Petersburg to pick up his family. 

They say they often have to circle parking lots for a disabled driver's space. They added that purchasing the decal was inconvenient and perks are few. 

"If you go to a social event, you're still going to have to pay for parking," Brown said. 

" ... If I go to Sea World or watch the Bucs I'll pay for parking, so it (the decal) really doesn't cover that much." 

The judge ordered the state to refund all payments made since Jan. 26, 1992, plus interest, and cease collecting permit fees. 

Lawyer Karen Gievers of Tallahassee said the ruling "is a good day for the disabled of Florida." Gievers and other lawyers who participated in the class-action lawsuits that were consolidated for a hearing in Miami-Dade County are also entitled to attorneys fees, the judge ruled. 

"This has been a long time in coming," said George Locascio, a disabled veteran from St. Petersburg. "It's important to a lot of people who are living on basic Social Security." 

Since 1998, Floridians with a permanent handicap could avoid paying the fee by getting a permanent license tag with the disabled permit embossed on the tag. Up until then, the state would issue tags only to the disabled in wheelchairs, a rule that forced everyone else with a medical problem and difficulty walking to buy the special handicapped tag that hangs on a car mirror. 

Fred Dickinson, director of the state agency that handles license tags, agreed to change the policy in 1997 after an exchange of letters with federal officials who concluded the state was violating the federal act. 

In 1995, the Legislature was notified that the parking fee, mandated by state law, was in violation of federal law but took no action. 

"We thought we had complied with what they had asked us to do," said Sanchez, the highway agency's communications director. 

But the department did not publicize the fact that handicapped citizens could buy a metal tag instead of getting the hanging tag, Sanchez acknowledged. 

A lot of people thought they had to have both tags, said Locascio. 

Sanchez said he is recommending changes in the department's Web site to better inform handicapped citizens of the ability to acquire a tag at no extra charge. 

In interviews Monday, some drivers said they do not mind paying for the permits. 

"So many people have them and don't need them," said Larry W. Wellington, 57, as he set his cane aside and prepared to climb into his pickup truck at the St. Petersburg K-Mart. "If you deserve it, you should be able to pay for it. 

"If you start giving it away, people are going to take advantage of it." 

He noted that there is a shortage of handicapped parking spaces but that some people abuse the decals by letting friends and family without disabilities use them. 

Some said they were bothered by the principle behind the fee. 

Pulling into the parking space Wellington had vacated just minutes before, Lily Vega, 78, and her daughter said the permits should be a privilege the elderly and disabled do not have to pay for. 

Already, officials had begun charging extra dollars for additional decals, said Vega, whose daughter was driving her on an errand Monday. 

"I think it's good that we can finally get something we don't have to pay for," she said. "They should be doing better for older people." 

The state puts $13.50 of each $15 payment into a transportation trust fund for road building projects. Gievers complained that the state does not spend the money on improving access for the disabled. 

The permit fee was challenged in lawsuits filed six years ago in federal court. They were deferred to state court where they were consolidated as a class-action lawsuit for a hearing last month. 

The lawsuit was filed by Sergio Rendon, Joann M. Norris, James J. Silcock, Paul J. Lussier, Stephen R. Fisher and Lois V. Busick, all handicapped Floridians who were required to pay the fee.

The use of a batch of uncertified liquid in testing Largo Police Department's breath test equipment could jeopardize drunken driving arrests.

By CHRIS TISCH
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 27, 2001


LARGO -- Five months of drunken driving arrests are in jeopardy because Largo police used a liquid not certified by the state to test the machine that measures alcohol in a person's bloodstream.

The mistake occurred this summer when the company that produces the liquid shipped a noncertified batch to the department. Police didn't notice the error until contacted in early November by Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials, who also had not noticed the mistake.

Largo police have arrested 63 people on drunken driving charges since the error occurred. Twenty of those people refused to take an intoxilyzer test, which uses exhaled breath to measure a person's blood-alcohol. But defense attorneys for the other 43 defendants could argue that their
clients' cases should be tossed out because of the noncertified liquid.

Of those 43 cases, 31 have already ended in guilty or no-contest pleas. Still, defense attorneys could try to get those pleas set aside. Attorneys for the other 12 defendants could ask that their cases be dismissed or that the intoxilyzer test results be suppressed.

"I certainly think it opens the door for significant postconviction litigation on the issue," said Largo attorney John Trevena, who represented one of the 31 people who already entered a plea.

Like many states, Florida requires that the testing liquid not only be analyzed by the company but by the FDLE.

Departments use the liquid to test their machines each month. The solution, when heated, mimics the breath of a human who has been drinking.

The liquid holds a certain alcohol content, and police ensure the machine reads the liquid accurately. If it is off by more than a small amount, the machine must be taken out of service and repaired.

In June, the company that provides Largo police with the solution, Alcohol Countermeasure Systems Inc., sent a liquid that had not been certified by the FDLE.

"It was just a shipping error," said Chris Wilson, marketing manager for the company.

Wilson said most police departments check the solution when they receive it to ensure it has been
double-tested.

Officer Chris Burke, Largo's intoxilyzer inspector, did not do that in this case but says he will in the future. The department also is reviewing its intoxilyzer policies and procedures, said Lt. Jim Precious.

Burke sends all the intoxilyzer reports to the FDLE. Those reports are marked with the solution's number, but no one at FDLE noticed that it was a noncertified number until November.

The FDLE's alcohol testing office could have discovered the error sooner, though looking over the reports is a courtesy and not a requirement of her office, said Laura Barfield, the program's manager.

The ultimate responsibility falls to Largo police because "the agency inspector should have read the bottles better," she said.

When someone at FDLE saw the mistake on a report in early November, the person called Burke and asked him to check the solution number again. He did and discovered the error.

Barfield said changes are being made in her office that could prevent this from happening again. She said those changes were under way prior to the Largo case.

After learning of the error, Largo police notified the State Attorney's Office. Letters will be sent to each defendant and his or her attorney advising them of the error, said Scott Rosenwasser, assistant county court director for the State Attorney's Office.

Largo police also contacted the St. Petersburg Times to disclose the error. Police officials said they wanted to be upfront about the mistake.

"You have to applaud Largo PD's honesty in bringing this forward," Trevena said.

Police and state officials say the error may not have much of an effect on the cases, if any.

For one, the machine was correctly calibrated prior to the uncertified liquid being used, and certified liquid has since been used to test it again. The new test determined the machine was calibrated correctly, which means it also was correct during the past five months, Barfield said.

In addition, Barfield said she plans to test the noncertified solution Largo used to prove that it is reliable. She said Alcohol Countermeasures Systems has never provided a bad solution to the state.

"I've had no problems with their solutions so I can almost guarantee I'll have no problem with this lot," she said.

And drunken driving arrests usually don't lean solely on intoxilyzer tests. Other evidence also is used, such as people caught stumbling and mumbling on a squad car video, an officer's observations of botched field sobriety tests or witness accounts of how someone was weaving on the road.

Rosenwasser said prosecutors will review each case that might be challenged to determine whether there is enough other evidence to continue prosecution.

"The breath test is just a piece of the puzzle," Rosenwasser said.

Budget problems paralyze programs for drug addicts that are among few alternatives to jail or prison time.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 12, 2002


Every day across Florida, judges sentence nonviolent drug addicts to residential programs for rigorous treatment. Often, it's their only alternative to a prison sentence.

But Florida corrections officials this week suspended all new admissions into these state-funded programs because of the state's continuing budget crisis.

Florida Department of Corrections officials sent a memo to judges and drug treatment providers across the state on Wednesday ordering the suspension. Officials plan to meet Monday to assess the full impact of budget shortfalls and determine just how prolonged the suspension might be.

Locally, the impending loss of DOC funding is expected to have a dramatic effect on Pinellas County's new drug court and other judges who sentence addicts. Hillsborough and Citrus counties also operate drug courts, and judges everywhere routinely send addicts to treatment.

"This is shutting down drug treatment statewide," said Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger. "The short-and long-term effect of this is that it's going to put more people in jail and prison."

Often, treatment at a facility operated by a nonprofit group is a criminal defendant's last shot from the justice system, allowing them to keep jobs, maintain ties with family and avoid prison while staying at a facility where they can be monitored.

A variety of nonprofits provide treatment locally, including Operation PAR and Bridges of America.

"It's a tremendous cut statewide," said Nancy Hamilton, chief operating officer for Operation PAR. "If a drug abuser has the potential to get help to change their ways, it's not going to be available to them anymore."

DOC spokeswoman Debbie Buchanan, reached Friday evening, said she didn't know anything about the
drug program cuts. Officials with knowledge of the shortfall could not immediately be reached for comment.

A majority of defendants in Pinellas' drug court are sentenced to outpatient programs operated by some of the same providers. That means defendants get less-vigorous treatment during the day while still living at home.

Pinellas' drug court Judge Lauren Laughlin said she is optimistic that funding for these outpatient programs will remain relatively intact, though others are less certain.

"We're going to be here," the judge said, emphasizing that she didn't think the cuts imperiled the drug court. "I've got too many people doing so well. This is just another speed bump for us."

Dillinger said he worried that even outpatient treatment money will be affected and that word of that might come after Monday's DOC meeting.

Nobody suggests the suspension is permanent. In fact, Hamilton said she hoped it might be lifted after next week. Additional revenue might be available after the end of the fiscal year on June 30, she said.

"It's going to be a bloody meeting on Monday," she said. "The outlook is pretty stark. You can't have a drug court without treatment."

The DOC said in its memo to judges that it failed to secure block grant funding from the Department of Children and Families to replace previous legislative budget cuts for both residential and outpatient programs.

The DOC faces a total of $3.2-million in cuts to residential programs and $2.4-million in outpatient, the memo said.

Dillinger said he feared the cost to the state and society in the long run would be much more severe.

"It's going to put more people in jail and in prison," he said. "People who aren't getting treatment are going to be victimizing more. They steal and rob to get money for drugs if they're not getting treatment."

There will be less space in treatment programs. Participants may have to pay more.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times published January 15, 2002


ALTAMONTE SPRINGS -- State drug treatment programs aimed at keeping addicts out of prison must reduce their beds by nearly a third because of the Florida budget crisis.

In addition, criminal defendants already in such programs may have to pay nearly twice as much of their own money to stay.

Word of those dramatic cuts and others came Monday at a meeting between the Florida Department of
Corrections, which funds most treatment programs, and nonprofit treatment providers.

"We were all hoping this day wouldn't come," said Richard Nimer, the DOC's director of drug service programs. "We have no choice. We've got to get it done . . . we have no money."

The cuts, which hit more than 30 programs across Florida, will be particularly devastating for drug courts, including those in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Citrus counties.

Drug court judges frequently send defendants to treatment in residential programs as an alternative to jail or prison.

The DOC also cut funding to numerous outpatient programs, telling providers that as of Feb. 1 defendants will have to pay the full cost of these programs.

Typically, the outpatient fee is $20 to $25 per week for group therapy sessions. The DOC had been picking up this cost or a portion of it for indigent defendants. The DOC will continue to fund outpatient costs for those already in programs.

"We're just going to have to tighten our belts," said Gail Holly, supervisor for adult drug courts in Hillsborough. "We're going to make it, but our treatment providers are definitely going to have to juggle resources."

Nimer said the DOC must cut about $5.6-million in its current $24.5-million budget for drug treatment and outpatient care. The cuts are more severe because they come halfway through the fiscal year, magnifying the effects.

But Nimer said he hopes the cuts were temporary. He said Gov. Jeb Bush is supportive of the drug programs.

Nimer expects funding levels to be restored in the next fiscal budget year, beginning July 1.

"You are all barely making it as it is," Nimer told service providers. "I'm not thrilled by these cuts . . . let's be frank. If we don't get money restored (July 1), we're going to have to make some changes next year."

In all, treatment providers must cut 32 percent of their beds by Feb. 1, a statewide loss of about 612 beds.

In the Tampa Bay area, one of the hardest-hit providers will be Operation PAR, which loses funding for 62 beds, mostly for drug abusers, in Pinellas, Pasco and Manatee counties.

"This hurts," said Nancy Hamilton, PAR's chief operating officer. "I think that there is no question there will be some people who will not be able to get treatment. Anyone who says differently is not facing reality."

The DOC also cut by 10 percent the per-day cost it pays for each defendant in a residential program. Nimer recommended that providers pass the cost on to defendants in programs. Currently, defendants with jobs pay $8 per day for services. Nimer said providers should raise that to $15.

Some providers said defendants couldn't afford the extra cost.

"A lot of our clients are only making minimum wage," said Nick Trunzo, director of residential services at Spectrum, a program in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Nimer blamed the problem on economic decline and suggested that some programs might want to consider releasing some drug addicts early if they are making good progress.

"We've looked at umpteen options on how to do this." he said "There's just no wiggle room."

The hit to Pinellas is softened somewhat because a 75-bed facility operated by Bridges of America won't be affected by these cuts, Nimer said. The Bridges facility in St. Petersburg is supported by federal monies and other revenue sources not affected by the budget shortfall, he said.

Other Bridges programs around Florida were not as lucky.

"These cuts are deeper than we thought they were going to be," said John McMahon, residential programs coordinator with Salvation Army Correctional Services, which has 157 beds in Jacksonville, Fort Myers and Daytona.

"We're going to have to lay people off and cut back services," he said. "This is going to have a
dramatic effect across Florida.

Many fear that more defendants will end up in prison if they don't get treatment, something that ends up costing the state more money than residential treatment.

"We're just going to have to suck it up and get through these difficult times," Nimer said.

.c The Associated Press


WASHINGTON (AP) - Police, animal control officers and even a small pack of foxhounds could not find a fox that ran into the underground garage at the Supreme Court building. 

The fox hunt began after a court police officer spotted the animal running down a driveway toward the garage Sunday morning, court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Monday. A security camera also recorded the animal entering the parking garage. 

The rear door of the garage was closed, so police figured they had the creature trapped. The fox, type unknown, eluded both police and District of Columbia animal control officers. A Virginia fox-hunting club then volunteered to send in the hounds. 

No horses accompanied the two foxhounds and one border terrier on their rounds of the garage and adjoining basement. The dogs apparently picked up a faint trail, but did not find the fox, Arberg said. 

``It's possible that he's not here, but we're going to check again,'' Arberg said. 

AP-NY-01-14-02 1151EST

By GINA HOLLAND
.c The Associated Press


WASHINGTON (AP) - A man fired after secretly helping the FBI investigate an anthrax threat lost his free-speech appeal in the Supreme Court Monday. 

The court turned down a chance to decide if the free-speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment cover a public employee's cooperation with law enforcement, even when that assistance is against the wishes of the employer. 

Since Sept. 11, justices have not agreed to review a case that directly touches on terrorism. They declined without comment to take this one. 

At the heart of the case is the 1998 investigation of a man who wrote a book on how to make anthrax and other weapons. He also was questioned in the recent anthrax mailings but not charged. 

The FBI was told about Timothy Tobiason by an unlikely source, an investigator for poor criminal defendants. 

Daniel Rupp was praised by his employer, the federal public defender in Wichita, Kan., for notifying the FBI after Tobiason allegedly talked to him at a gun show about anthrax and his anger about the government. 

But Rupp was told to let federal agents handle the matter from there because of a potential conflict. He worked for an agency that provided legal defense for people investigated by the FBI. 

Months later, he lost his job after the public defender's office learned that Rupp had met another half-dozen times with the FBI and had corresponded with Tobiason about his anthrax plans as part of the investigation, court records show. 

``It just seems amazing to me that your rights to report something like that can be that limited,'' Rupp said Monday. 

He now works as an investigator for a state public defender. 

``This case is more than a run-of-the-mill government employee speech case. It is a case presenting a public issue of enormous importance to the nation,'' Rupp's attorneys wrote in urging justices to hear his appeal. 

A judge had dismissed his case, and the 10th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals also said the firing was proper. The appeals court noted that he was not fired for reporting the alleged threats. His other involvement, after telling his boss he would no longer help the FBI, was not free speech, the appeals court said. 

``Once Mr. Rupp had tipped the FBI, it was certainly capable of carrying out an investigation of Mr. Tobiason with or without Mr. Rupp's help,'' the court said. 

That's not necessarily so, argued a group of law officers backing Rupp. The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association said that someone with access to alleged terrorists cannot easily be replaced. 

The association said in court filings that Sept. 11 and the later anthrax deaths ``have brought home to the public the threat of terrorism and the effect that the use, or even the threat of the use, of weapons of mass destruction can have on the populace, the economy and the government.'' 

Rupp, a weapons collector who frequented gun shows, said Tobiason told him in 1998 that he had used gelatin to grow an anthrax culture. Rupp also said the man was angered that national newspapers, including The National Enquirer, were not giving him attention. 

Anthrax was discovered in October in Florida at the headquarters of the company that publishes six supermarket tabloids, including The National Enquirer. A photo editor died from breathing anthrax spores in a tainted letter. 

Tobiason was questioned earlier by law officers but not accused of any wrongdoing. 

Part of Rupp's case rests on the constitutional importance of government getting information, not just his right to give it. 

His lawyer said the appeals court ``ignored the compelling interest of (Rupp), the public and law enforcement in the free flow of information important to the protection of society.'' 

Rupp had been hired in 1994 by the public defender. Three years later he met Tobiason at a gun show, then in 1998 Rupp said they talked at another gun show about anthrax. The following day, he contacted the FBI. 

The public defender's office told the Supreme Court that the firing was about him ``surreptitiously'' helping the FBI. Rupp could no longer be trusted for sensitive matters involved in his job because of the deception, the office maintained. 

The defender ``was attempting to avert an ethical and client relations disaster before it occurred,'' the attorney for the agency, Alan L. Rupe, wrote. 

The case is Rupp v. Phillips, 01-685. 

AP-NY-01-14-02 1333EST

An appellate court throws out the law on tougher sentences for repeat offenders. The decision now goes to the Supreme Court. 

By MIKE BRASSFIELD

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 24, 2002 

An appellate court throws out the law on tougher sentences for repeat offenders. The decision now goes to the Supreme Court.

Florida's "three strikes" law, one of Gov. Jeb Bush's premier anticrime initiatives, was struck down Wednesday by a state appeals court. 

The 1999 law, which requires tougher prison sentences for criminals who commit their third violent crime, is unconstitutional, the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Lakeland ruled. 

The Florida Supreme Court now will take up the issue, though it was unclear late Wednesday how soon that could happen. 

The ruling will have no immediate effect on people who are already in prison, state officials said, but it throws the future of the "three strikes" law into doubt. 

The ruling means that Florida criminals will no longer be sentenced under the "three strikes" law until the Supreme Court decides the issue. Until then, the appeals court's decision will affect all of Florida unless an appeals court elsewhere in the state issues a conflicting ruling. 

Bush, who advocated the "three-strikes" proposal during his 1998 campaign for governor, was disappointed but said he would try to get the law re-enacted in the legislative session that started Tuesday. 

"I am committed to restoring the protections in the "three-strikes' law for our seniors, police and all Floridians," the governor said. "Florida's crime rate in 2000 was the lowest in 28 years, and laws like "three strikes' are a critical component of our success in reducing crime." 

In a highly technical ruling, a three-judge panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled that the law violates the constitutional requirement that statutes deal with only a single subject. 

Sen. Victor Crist, a Tampa Republican who sponsored the law in 1999, disagreed with the court decision but vowed to fix the law and get it passed again. 

"We could be done in as quickly as two weeks," Crist said. 

The law requires judges to give the maximum possible sentence for a criminal defendant's third violent crime. The law also says drug dealers and people who attack police or elderly people also must get the maximum sentence. 

Within months of the law's taking effect in 1999, the governor and law enforcement officials were crediting it with lowering the state's crime rate. 

However, the law's critics say it's too inflexible and takes away judges' discretion. 

Public defenders say they will use Wednesday's court ruling to seek shorter prison terms for felons. 

"We will start trying to implement that law in the 6th Circuit," said Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger, "and we'll wait to see what the Supreme Court does." 

The Supreme Court's review of the "three strikes" law likely could be delayed by legal motions filed by attorneys on both sides of the issue. 

This is only the latest court ruling that has blocked key initiatives promoted by Bush and the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature. 

In recent years, the governor and Republican lawmakers have criticized decisions by Florida courts that have blocked restrictions on abortions, rejected accelerated death penalty appeals and stalled changes in civil courts. 

Last year the Legislature approved changes in the way judges are selected for both the state circuit courts and courts of appeal, including the court that issued Wednesday's order. Bush, who signed the bill into law, will ultimately appoint all members of judicial nominating commissions that screen lawyers for the bench. 

The 2nd District Court of Appeal's ruling on Florida's "three strikes" law came in the case of Rebecca Taylor, a Sarasota woman who pleaded no contest to a drug trafficking charge last January and was sentenced to 40 months in prison. 

Wednesday's decision vacates that prison term and orders that Taylor be resentenced. 

Only two of the 13 sections of the 1999 law actually dealt with "three strikes" provisions, the court said in its opinion. Most of the others spelled out minimum sentences that must be imposed by judges in a variety of crimes, including drug trafficking cases like Taylor's. 

Those provisions, however, were similar enough to pass muster, the court wrote. But two other sections of the law were too far afield, the judges wrote. 

One expanded the definition of the crime of "burglary of a conveyance" to include railroad cars and another required court clerks to notify immigration officials when immigrants are convicted. 

The burglary part of the law was added in a last-minute amendment just before the bill was adopted, the court noted. 

"This is exactly the type of "logrolling' legislation that the single-subject rule was intended to prevent," the opinion reads. 

Normally, people have a limited time to challenge laws on the basis of single-subject because the courts have ruled that the routine re-enactment of the statutes, which lawmakers typically do every two years, cures the problem. 

However, the Legislature last year did not re-enact the laws passed in 1999 because of a dispute between the House and Senate over whether to carry out that task every year or every two years.

By JOANN LOVIGLIO
.c The Associated Press


PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Ninety-one years after fingerprint evidence was first presented in an American courtroom, its reputation as an infallible forensic tool is under attack in a court challenge that could change how criminal cases are tried. 

On Monday, federal prosecutors will try to persuade U.S. District Judge Louis H. Pollak to reverse his recent decision barring experts from testifying about whether a fingerprint taken from a crime scene matches a defendant. If the judge doesn't change his mind, the decision could change the way forensic evidence is gathered and presented in court. 

While prosecutors and some forensic experts say Pollak's ruling could have grave consequences, critics of fingerprint analysis say it's about time the process was reviewed. 

``There are a lot of emperors out there testifying who have no clothes,'' said David L. Faigman of University of California's Hastings College of Law. ``Where's the science behind it? Where's the data?'' 

The ruling, believed to be the first of its kind, involves a death penalty case in which three men are charged with operating a multimillion-dollar drug ring and are linked to four killings. 

Lawyers for Carlos Llera-Plaza, Wilfredo Acosta and Victor Rodriguez asked the judge to bar fingerprint evidence. Under Pollak's ruling, experts can testify about and show illustrations of similarities or dissimilarities between ``latent'' fingerprints from a crime scene and ``rolled'' 
fingerprints on file, but they cannot testify that crime scene prints match a defendant's fingerprints. 

Citing a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring judges to take a more active role in deciding what scientific evidence to admit, Pollak said that, unlike DNA evidence, fingerprint evidence has not been scientifically tested, its error rate has not been calculated, and there are no standards for what constitutes a match. 

Prosecutors declined to comment on the case, citing the upcoming hearing, but said in court documents that Pollak's opinion, if left to stand, ``would have grave consequences.'' 

``It would deprive the government of vital evidence in this case, in which latent fingerprints directly link defendants to heinous murders,'' court documents stated. ``If carried to its logical conclusion, the court's reasoning would virtually eliminate any expert opinion on the myriad subjects on which subjective expert opinion has always been welcomed in the federal courts.'' 

Since the first conviction in the United States on fingerprint evidence in 1911, the fingerprint classification system used in much of the world has changed little. 

A person's fingerprint is classified by its arches, loops and whorls, then compared to latent fingerprints by design type and by locating certain fixed points and counting the ridges between the points. 

``The courts have recognized the validity and merit for fingerprint identification for 100 years,'' said Joseph P. Polski, chief operations officer of the International Association for Identification, an industry group. ``If fingerprint identification was prohibited from being admitted in court, it would have far reaching effects in identifying bad guys.'' 

Although DNA evidence has become a highly prized evidentiary tool, fingerprints can help track down criminals in ways DNA can't - in part because hundreds of millions of fingerprints are on file, Polski said. 

If Pollak's decision stands, Faigman said it likely would lead to scientific testing and advances in fingerprint analysis technology that could erase the judge's concerns that fingerprints rely too much on subjective analysis and not enough on hard science. 

Though Pollak's decision only applies to cases tried in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, legal experts say it has opened the door for other courts to address the issue. The 3rd Circuit hears appeals from federal courts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the Virgin Islands. 

``In very short order, fingerprinting will receive substantive research and will come through this challenge - maybe modified - and we could end up with a much better technology,'' Faigman said. 

He believes the government is fighting Pollak's ruling not because fingerprints can't pass scientific muster, but because of concerns that the case may lead to scrutiny of other forensic tools - including bite-mark and handwriting analysis, which Faigman called ``voodoo.'' 

``They're afraid they'll win the fingerprint battle but lose the forensic science war,'' he said. 

On the Net: 

Judge Pollak's opinion: 
http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/02D0046P.HTM 

Recent legal challenges: http://www.onin.com/fp/daubert-links.html 

AP-NY-02-24-02 1339EST

By JOANN LOVIGLIO
.c The Associated Press


PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A federal judge who previously barred fingerprint testimony has changed his mind and will allow experts in a capital case to testify about prints lifted from a crime scene. 

Judge Louis H. Pollak reversed himself Wednesday, two weeks after a hearing on the accuracy of fingerprint analysis, in a ruling that was carefully watched by prosecutors and defense attorneys. 

``In short, I have changed my mind,'' Pollak said after a lengthy courtroom explanation of his 59-page opinion. 

Pollak's initial ruling, 91 years after fingerprint evidence was first admitted in an American courtroom, had challenged the infallibility of fingerprints as a crime-solving tool. 

Since the first conviction on fingerprint evidence in 1911 in the United States, the system used in much of the world has changed little. A person's fingerprint is classified by its arches, loops and whorls, then compared to ``latent'' crime-scene fingerprints at various points. 

In his earlier ruling on Jan. 7 - believed to be the first of its kind - Pollak ruled that experts could testify about crime-scene prints and compare them to a defendant's, but could not declare them a definite match. 

At Wednesday's hearing, the government presented data on long-secret FBI fingerprint examiner proficiency tests in the hopes of addressing Pollak's conclusion that the accuracy of fingerprint analysis had never been adequately tested. 

Defense attorneys also presented experts who testified that the proficiency exams appear to be crafted to ensure the test-taker's success. Pollak did not disagree with that assessment, but said it wasn't enough to forbid the testimony. 

Among other factors cited in his January opinion, Pollak said that, unlike DNA evidence, fingerprint evidence has not been scientifically tested, its error rate has not been calculated, and there are no standards for what constitutes a match. He did not dispute that each individual's fingerprints are unique, but said that interpreting smeared, partial crime scene prints is not infallible. 

But Pollak concluded Wednesday that though the FBI tests are not challenging and need improvement, there was no evidence that the error rate for certified FBI fingerprint examiners is ``unacceptably high.'' 

He also said that one of his initial concerns had been that the United States and England had inconsistent standards - the U.S. does not require a minimum number of points to declare a match. 

When he wrote his original opinion, he said, he wasn't aware that the standards in England had recently changed. England, which until recently had specific criteria for matching - like a fingerprint ridge splitting into two or the contours of individual ridges - now is like the United States in that it no longer requires a specific number of points to match up before experts can conclude the prints came from the same person. 

``We're grateful to Judge Pollak for giving us the opportunity to reopen the record and address some of the concerns that he raised,'' U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan said. ``This will enable us to move forward with this prosecution.'' 

The rulings stem from a death-penalty murder case slated to begin Monday. Prosecutors have accused three men - Carlos Ivan Llera-Plaza, 32, Wilfredo Martinez Acosta, 23, and Victor Rodriguez, 34 - of operating a multimillion-dollar Philadelphia drug ring linked to four murders. 

If convicted, the defendants would be the first in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to face the federal death penalty since it was brought back in 1988. 

Jacksonville PD's Ann Finnell and Patrick McGuinness are headed to the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. They are featured in one of the documentaries that is up for an Oscar. Murder On a Sunday Morning is the story of their representation of an innocent juvenile charged with murder, the false confession that was beat out of him and, finally, the resolution of the case and the crime. 

The film was made by a crew from France with the hopes of putting together a short documentary for French public television. Instead, because of the extraordinary turn of events in this particular case, they ended up capturing quite a story. The French team sold the film to HBO, which entered it into the Oscar race.

Earlier this week Ann and Pat attended a screening at the French embassy in New York City. Some time after the Academy Awards they will be flown to Paris for a screening there.

We are all totally psyched for them.

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

Expert suggests death penalty reform in Florida
By BOB ARNDORFER
Sun staff writer

Some of the sweeping changes a commission has proposed to reform Illinois' death penalty could be adopted in Florida, said a former University of Florida sociologist who helped write a report used in the Illinois panel's deliberations. 

"The commission had something like 80 different suggestions for reforms," said Mike Radelet, former chair of UF's sociology department and now a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

"Some of the recommendations in this report, Gov. (Jeb) Bush could adopt," he said. "One example might be to videotape all interrogations of suspects in death-penalty cases, or have no death sentences imposed based on uncorroborated testimony from an accomplice or snitch." 

Two years ago, after he imposed a moratorium on capital punishment, Illinois Gov. George Ryan formed a 14-member commission to revamp Illinois' death penalty. In its report, released in Chicago on Monday, the commission recommended dozens of changes - including reducing from 20 to five the number of circumstances that would warrant execution. 

The commission stopped short of recommending abolishing capital punishment; panelists were asked only to recommend fixes to the current system. But a narrow majority of the commission would favor ending the death penalty, the panelists wrote in a summary of their report. 

Radelet said that two years ago, while he was still at UF, Ryan asked him and a colleague to produce a report on race and the death penalty in Illinois. Radelet had done research on racial bias in death sentencing in Florida. As a result, he long ago became active in the anti-death penalty movement. 

"What Florida needs to do is have a thorough, objective study of two principal problems," Radelet said by phone from Chicago, where he participated in a news conference for the release of the report. "Number one: is racial bias in the system; and two: the question of why are so many innocent people being sentenced to death in Florida?" 

Florida leads the nation in the number of Death Row inmates who were found innocent of the crimes they were convicted of, said Abe Bonowitz, director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, based in Tequesta. Since 1972, he said, there have been 24 Death Row exonerations in Florida. 

Radelet said that in their report, he and colleague Glenn Pierce of Boston's Northeastern University studied about 5,300 homicide cases that occurred in Illinois between 1988 and 1997. 

"We found that the race of the defendant doesn't matter," he said. "But the race of the victim has a strong impact - as it has in Florida. With those who kill whites - other things being equal - the odds of a death sentence are about 60 percent higher than for those who kill blacks." Bonowitz said the Illinois report could be useful in Florida. 

"Now Gov. Bush doesn't need to expend any funds doing his own commission," he said. "He should just use the recommendations of the Illinois commission . . Certainly we can make some fixes that will help prevent Florida from any further wrongful convictions and from continuous waste of resources that we see in our capital punishment system.

Radelet said the Illinois report could be the basis for reform in Florida and other states that have the death penalty. 

"Opinion polls have shown that only a minority (of people) support the death penalty given life without parole as an option," he said. 

"And there's increasing involvement by religious organizations standing opposed to the death penalty," Radelet said. "In Florida, there's remarkable unanimity among both Christian and Jewish denominations regarding the death penalty. And they're becoming much more vocal." 



The Associated Press contributed to this report. Bob Arndorfer can be reached at (352) 374-5042 or bob.arndorfer@gainesvillesun.com. 

The new device will compare visitors' faces with a database of 5,000 pictures of fugitives and potential terrorists.


By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 17, 2002 


More Pinellas County residents will have their faces scanned against those of terrorists and fugitives as new technology gains wider use. 

A face scanner has been installed at the visitors center of the Pinellas County Jail. Sheriff Everett Rice also wants to put a scanner at the entrance to the Criminal Courthouse on 49th Street. 

The face scanner placed at St. Petersburg/Clearwater International Airport in January met with widespread support, but the latest ideas may run into opposition. When it comes to getting on an airplane these days, most people want all the safety they can get. But as the location becomes more mundane, the tradeoff between security and privacy becomes trickier, some say. 

"Where does it go next?" asked Commissioner Bob Stewart. "I'm sure the champions (of the technology) would say, 'Let's take it to the driver's license bureau' and 'Let's take it to the bank.' " 

Stewart said that he is concerned about putting it at the visitors center and that he would have "a lot of questions" about placing a scanner at the criminal courthouse. 

"Something about it says to me, that's government going too far," he said. 

But Rice doesn't see it that way. 

"It's not invasive at all," he said of the scanner. "We don't keep the images. We're not building a database of people's faces. That's critical. The public needs to know that." 

County Commission Chairman Barbara Sheen Todd backed Rice. 

"All those areas have pretty tight security, and they have it for a reason," she said. 

Pinellas County still won't use the face scanners the way they're used to monitor crowds in Ybor City, Rice said. 

"I don't see any application of surveying the general public," Rice said. 

The scanner compares each face to a database of nearly 5,000 pictures of fugitives and potential terrorists. So far, the airport scanners haven't netted any arrests. 

The scanners have been paid for with a $3-million federal grant secured by U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young. The system also will be used to overhaul the jail's booking photo system. 

Rice, who supervises jail operations, decided to put a scanner at the visitors center because "it's a key point, and security is an issue there." 

The scanner was set up Sunday, but won't be used for a few days. The center is across the street from the jail. Visitors talk to prisoners, who remain in the jail itself, on videophone.

Rice said that in the past, prisoners trying to escape made plans with visitors, but he didn't know whether any fugitives had visited the center. 

Would a fugitive come to the visitors center? 

"I don't know, but sometimes that makes our business easier, because criminals are not always smart," he said. 

Hillsborough sheriff's Col. David Parrish, who oversees the Hillsborough County Jail system, said such a location makes sense. 

"It's probably the most logical place to use it, because you have a stable environment," as opposed to using it on a busy street, he said. 

But Parrish said he isn't considering it for Hillsborough because of budget concerns. Also, he said, "I'd rather not be the first in line" to try it out. 

Rice has discussed putting a scanner at the courthouse with a few judges and other officials, including members of a courthouse safety committee, but no decision has been made. Pinellas-Pasco Chief Judge David Demers and State Attorney Bernie McCabe said Tuesday they would have to study the issue further. Bob Dillinger, Pinellas-Pasco public defender, said he would oppose it. 

Jail visitors Tuesday had differing views. 

"They're just trying to keep people protected and secure," said St. Petersburg resident Tika Thomas. "I'm not wanted for anything. I'm not worried." 

But Pinellas Park resident Jennifer Smith said using it at the center is different from using it at the airport. 

"It's really a little extreme," she said. "I just can't see a terrorist attack at a place like this." 

-- Staff writer Amy Herdy contributed to this report.

The certification of the police officer who tests the department's breath-alcohol machine expired in December.
By LEANORA MINAI, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 30, 2002

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GULFPORT -- To test alcohol levels, police ask suspected drunken drivers to blow into a machine.

To make sure that machine is accurate, an officer inspects it monthly. That officer must be certified.

But the Gulfport Police Department, which has only one approved inspector, allowed his state certification to expire in December. The lapse calls into question some of the 20 DUI arrests made in the city before it was discovered.

"Clearly, we dropped the ball," police Chief Curt Willocks said Thursday. "Obviously, we don't want to prosecute someone if we don't have the best evidence."

For eight months, Gulfport was in violation of Florida Department of Law Enforcement rules. Only FDLE-certified officers can inspect and calibrate breath-alcohol machines, the results of which often are attacked in court anyway.

Gulfport's inspecting officer, Terry Taylor, a 16-year veteran, has not been disciplined. Willocks said it was an innocent mistake.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys say the lapse does not mean Gulfport's DUI cases will be automatically dismissed. But defense lawyers will have new ammunition.

Bruce Bartlett, chief assistant state attorney, said Thursday that letters have been mailed to defendants in the Gulfport DUIs informing them of the glitch.

Barlett contended the cases are still strong because the officer inspected the machine monthly and has the documentation to show it was operating correctly.

"It does not suggest the results were flawed," Bartlett said.

In 13 of the 20 cases, drivers took the breath tests with results as high as 0.249 and 0.254, three times the 0.08 limit at which impairment is presumed. In seven cases drivers refused the test.

Even without results of a breath test, prosecutors can rely on other evidence, such as a videotape of a suspect driving erratically or performing a field sobriety test.

But Bob Dillinger, the Pinellas-Pasco public defender, said defendants in settled cases could ask for a new trial, and defendants with pending cases are in a stronger position.

"It shouldn't happen in a police agency, but it's not an automatic devastating event," Dillinger said. Still, he said, "You're in good shape to defend someone."

Gulfport's officer, Taylor, told Willocks that his sergeant, who has since retired, did not tell him his certificate had expired.

"This was not an intentional matter," said Willocks, whose department is up for reaccreditation by the Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation.

On July 23, Taylor was making copies of a DUI case for the State Attorney's Office. In the packet, he was to include a copy of his state certification. But he couldn't find it.

Taylor called the FDLE in Tallahassee and was told his permit, which was valid until Dec. 2, 2001, had expired. Taylor told the chief.

From July 24 to Aug. 7, Gulfport's machine was out of service. Officers drove DUI suspects to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office to be tested.

For now, a Treasure Island police officer will inspect Gulfport's machine, while Gulfport goes through the monthslong certification process.

St. Petersburg resident John Tucker, 23, received one of the letters from the State Attorney's Office, informing him that the Gulfport officer's certification to inspect the machine had expired.

"I'm going back to court," said Tucker, a roofer. "I'm fighting it."