Tampabay: County near top in death cases

Pinellas and Hillsborough ranked among U.S. counties with the highest rate of death sentences, according to a new study that examined death penalty cases from 1973 to 1995.

The study, released Monday, also found that both counties ranked at or near the top in death cases that were overturned because of errors by judges or lawyers.

Pinellas, the study said, had an "error rate" of 89 percent on its death cases over the 23 years -- tops in the nation. Hillsborough's error rate was 72 percent, well above the national average of 68 percent.

Miami-Dade, Broward and Duval also ranked among the nation's top counties in death penalty rates, collectively vaulting Florida to the top of several statistical categories that made the state a key "laboratory" for studying the issue.

The study, conducted by the Columbia School of Law, is a follow-up to an earlier project from 2000. It makes the case that the death penalty in America should be reserved for the most "highly aggravated" cases.

It complains that "heavy and indiscriminate use" of the death penalty has increased the probability of error, bottled up the system and unnecessarily exacted a human toll on potentially innocent defendants and the families of victims.

Among the institutions singled out for blame are underfunded court systems and jurisdictions that pressure elected judges to impose the death penalty.

Among the solutions the study proposes: requiring proof of a crime beyond all doubt in death penalty cases. At present, juries must find that a crime occurred beyond a reasonable doubt.

The study comes as death cases in Florida and eight other states are on hold as the U.S. Supreme Court reviews an Arizona case. Three scheduled Florida executions have been postponed in recent weeks.

When informed about the study Monday, several key figures in Pinellas County's judicial system said the results surprised and perplexed them. But they offered a few theories.

"The numbers might seem high and sound bad, but we're talking about a 23-year period here," said Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Brandt C. Downey, who oversees criminal judges.

He said he recalls numerous Pinellas death cases from the 1970s and 1980s that were reversed on appeal.

So did Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Susan F. Schaeffer, widely acknowledged across Florida as a "guru" on the death penalty. After 20 years on the bench, she has sentenced defendants to death about eight times, likely the most of any judge in the state, she said. A one-time defense attorney, Schaeffer also helps train judges across the state on how to conduct death cases.

In the 1970s and '80s, she recalled, Pinellas judges were using a narrow written standard in murder cases to assess whether there were "mitigating factors" about a defendant that reduced the need for the death penalty. "That turned out to be wrong" after the U.S. Supreme Court determined that a broader set of mitigating factors could be used, Schaeffer said.

Also during that time, she said, the Florida Supreme Court was not reversing sentences in which a jury recommended life and a judge imposed a death sentence instead. Federal courts started to reverse such cases, and now the Florida Supreme Court reverses them routinely.

"That would account for a block of cases," Schaeffer said.

In the past five years, the state Supreme Court has mandated that judges be better trained before undertaking death penalty cases, Schaeffer and Downey said.

Schaeffer said she sits on a committee for the Florida Supreme Court that is studying how to reduce errors in trials. A proposal to staff such trials with only highly trained "specialty judges" has run into concerns about cost, she said.

"It's very difficult to try a death penalty case and not get reversed," Schaeffer said. Reversals are inevitable when death penalty cases are scrutinized and picked over by a higher court as many as 14 times, Schaeffer said.

The role of appeals courts was graphically illustrated in the Columbia study, which counted 5,826 death verdicts across the nation from 1973 to 1995. Of those, 358 were approved for execution and 313 were carried out, the study said.

Bob Dillinger, the Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender, said the 89 percent error rate is surprising.

However, one factor might be the pay given to court-appointed defense attorneys, who receive $50 an hour. "It's woefully inadequate," Dillinger said. "You have to pay a living wage."

Low-paid, inexperienced lawyers are a big factor that leads to errors in death cases, the Columbia study found.

Officials at the Hillsborough County State Attorney's office said they had not yet read the 600-page study and declined to comment. Hillsborough Public Defender Julianne Holt and Chief Judge Manuel Menendez Jr. did not return calls for comment.

Under the heading "Pressures Associated with Overuse of the Death Penalty," the study noted a "strong relationship" between a high number of death sentences and elected judges.

But court officials noted in interviews Monday that the decision to press ahead with the death penalty involves the state attorney, who decides whether to ask for the death penalty; the jury, which can recommend a life sentence or the death penalty in capital murder cases; and the judge, who can accept or reject the jury's recommendation.

"I've imposed the death penalty a few times, and I don't feel any political pressure to impose it or not impose it," said Judge Downey, who has been on the bench since 1989. Of the three people he sentenced to death, two came with jury recommendations of 10-2 and 12-0. In the third case, the defendant waived his right to a jury recommendation and Downey made the decision.

"Our politicians seem to think that Floridians have a strong taste for vengeance, and they want to close the books on these cases," said Abraham J. Bonowitz, director of Floridians For Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

He said of the study: "What this really does is it adds another layer to the mountain of evidence that points out Florida's death penalty system is broken. . . . Any kind of business would not operate on that level of failure, yet we hold onto its flaws."

-- The entire study can read on the Columbia University Law School Web site: www.law.columbia.edu

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