State: Prison guards trial finally seats a jury

STARKE -- After ending what is believed to be the most arduous jury selection in Florida history, lawyers today will turn their attention to the long-anticipated trial that will determine whether four prison guards murdered one of their inmates.

Opening statements are scheduled to begin Monday, and testimony is expected to last four to six weeks.

Was death row inmate Frank Valdes beaten and stomped to death by guards at Florida State Prison on July 17, 1999, as prosecutors allege? Or did he injure himself, as the guards contend, by falling off his bunk and flinging himself repeatedly from the cell bars to the concrete floor of his solitary cell?

A jury of six Bradford County residents, seated Wednesday, will decide those questions after hearing from as many as eight inmates, three forensic pathologists and investigators for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Early on in the trial, a trip to Florida State Prison is planned so jurors can see the layout of X-wing, the three-story block of 30 cells reserved for Florida's most incorrigible inmates.

It is there that Valdes was found without a pulse. The medical examiner later found he had 22 broken ribs, a partial boot print on his torso and fractures of his sternum, vertebrae, nose and jaw.

Prosecutors will ask jurors to put aside any thought that the life of Valdes -- a difficult prisoner who once killed a corrections officer and was set to die someday by lethal injection -- should hold less value than anyone else's. Defense attorneys will try to convince jurors that their clients performed their duties that day under trying circumstances.

Lawyers on both sides were shooting for a jury with some life experience. Thus, the panel of five men and one woman includes four retirees. The average age is 56.

One juror is a 54-year-old retired corrections lieutenant who supervised the second shift at a different prison. But prosecutors, who worked hard to keep the panel free from the Department of Corrections' pervasive influence in Bradford County, say his perspective will be tempered by something else. His son is a federal prison inmate serving 71/2 years for a drug charge.

"He can be balanced," said lead prosecutor Greg McMahon, who was prepared this week to ask Circuit Judge Larry G. Turner to move the trial to another county if efforts had failed Wednesday to seat a jury.

After three months of questioning 3,000 potential jurors, lawyers had burned through nearly a third of the county's jury pool. Many of them were unable to serve for health reasons, but many more could not afford to leave their jobs or families for six weeks. Others had connections to the Department of Corrections that might have tainted the jury.

As it happened, the jury contains "a good cross section of the community," McMahon said.

"We said all along we could pick a jury in Bradford County and we've done it," said Gloria Fletcher, the attorney for Capt. Timothy Thorton, 35, one of the four officers accused of second-degree murder and a variety of lesser charges. The other defendants are former corrections Sgts. Charles Brown, 27, Jason Griffis, 28, and Andrew Lewis, 30.

The two jurors who work are men in their 40s. One manages a tire store in neighboring Clay County; the other maintains machines for a Jacksonville company.

Because the trial will be so lengthy, five alternate jurors were chosen to cover the possibility that one of the original six will have to drop out. Lawyers were particularly mindful of one juror who expects to be diagnosed soon with lung cancer.

Fletcher said the four defendants, who were fired, have lost homes, cars, insurance and the ability to find work with the same pay and benefits. Although the officers' union is paying for their legal defense, they cannot get jobs because of the long absences required for court appearances, she said.

"They're stuck at ground zero, and they can't move forward until this cloud is removed," she said. "I think each of the defendants is looking forward to the trial getting under way so their side of the story can be told."

Turner, the veteran judge hearing the case, has echoed that sentiment several times during the three-month jury selection. He has said he wants the matter resolved for everyone involved, including the corrections system, which has been rocked by the allegations, and several North Florida communities that stake their livelihoods on prisons.

Frank Valdes' wife, Wanda, said she plans to be in Starke when the trial begins.

"I hope that we get justice there," she said Wednesday from her West Palm Beach home. "We'll see what happens."

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk