Court stays executions, wants time

The state Supreme Court will consider how a landmark ruling affects Florida's death penalty.

By ANITA KUMAR, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 9, 2002

A week after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for executions in Florida after an 18-month lapse, the Florida Supreme Court put the brakes on.

The court blocked two executions scheduled this week, raising questions about the future of the death penalty in Florida and the fate of 371 inmates awaiting execution.

The decision gives the court time to consider the impact of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that juries, not judges, must decide if a defendant lives or dies.

Defense attorneys argue that Florida's death penalty is unconstitutional because juries recommend life or death but a judge makes the final call. The Florida Supreme Court wants to consider that and scheduled arguments for Aug. 21.

"I cannot dismiss the possibility that the Supreme Court intended for this court to consider the impact ... in Florida," wrote Justice Major B. Harding. "Given the gravity of the issue and the potential impact on our state's judicial system, I think this court must proceed with caution."

The 6-1 ruling came just six hours before Linroy Bottoson, 63, was scheduled to die for the 1979 murder of the postmaster in Eatonville, north of Orlando. He already had eaten his second final meal, having come within three hours of execution in February.

Amos King, 47, was scheduled to die Wednesday for the 1977 murder of Natalie Brady of Tarpon Springs. It was the third time King had won a stay of execution. He had been scheduled to talk to reporters today.

For family members and friends of victims waiting more than two decades for closure, the news was hard to take.

"There's nothing I have to say anymore," said Marie Williams, Brady's sister. "They're either going to do it, or they're not going to do it. I'm fed up with it."

Some legal experts said the decision was legally sound. "The court has an obligation to at least hear that argument," said Robert Batey, a law professor at Stetson College of Law. "It makes perfect sense to delay these executions."

Defense attorneys hope the court is edging up to a momentous decision, though some legal experts doubt it.

"It's conceivable, though unlikely, it could lead to the reversal of every death penalty case in Florida," said Chris Slobogin, a University of Florida law professor.

The June 24 U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidated death sentencing procedures in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Nebraska, states where judges decide. It did not address Florida and three others where juries recommend life or death, but a judge makes the final decision.

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said previous decisions already had thrown "countless criminal sentences into doubt," straining the courts. This latest decision, she added, "is only going to add to these already serious effects."

She was right.

On Friday, attorneys for Bottoson and King filed appeals with the state Supreme Court, arguing that the Arizona case called into question the sentences of their defendants and all defendants on death row.

The Florida Public Defender Association, the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the NAACP wrote Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead, urging the court to delay the executions.

They cheered Monday's decision.

"It's an important day in death penalty litigation in the state of Florida," said Robert Harper of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "It's quite a momentous day."

Only Justice Charles Wells dissented.

"There are 25 years of precedent from the Supreme Court repeatedly upholding the constitutionality of Florida's capital sentencing statute, and nothing ... has affected those decisions," Wells wrote.

In most cases in Florida, judges agree with a jury's recommendation. But in seven cases, judges overruled jury recommendations. Three more defendants are on death row because a judge ignored a jury recommendation for life on one count but imposed the jury's call for death for other crimes.

A jury voted 10-2 to recommend death for Bottoson for kidnapping Catherine Alexander, 74, while robbing the post office, stabbing her 14 times and running over her with his car. But a jury was unanimous in recommending King's death for escaping from the Tarpon Springs Community Correctional Center and attacking Brady in her secluded house nearby.

Bottoson was scheduled to be the first person executed in Florida in more than 18 months. The last one was Robert Dewey Glock II, executed in January 2001 for the murder of Sharilyn Ritchie, a Manatee County schoolteacher.

"The sad part of that is that the town of Eatonville has been traumatized time and time again," Raymond Means, who was at the Orange County Sheriff's Office when the crime occurred in Eatonville and is now with the state attorney's office.

The U.S. Supreme Court delayed King's execution in January, and Bottoson's execution in February. Later, Gov. Jeb Bush stayed a third and refrained from signing any new death warrants until the court ruled. In effect, Florida has had a moratorium on the death penalty ever since and it was continued Monday.

-- Times staff writer Chris Goffard and researchers Kitty Bennett and Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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