King's lawyers file 'last best hope'

Attorneys for Amos Lee King Jr. exhort the courts and the governor to spare him from Wednesday's execution.

By KELLEY BENHAM, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 25, 2003

Amos Lee King Jr., scheduled to die Wednesday for the murder of an elderly widow 26 years ago, has always claimed he is innocent, but has never been able to prove it.

Monday, attorneys in two states attacked King's 1977 conviction. One lawyer filed an appeal in federal court using a technical legal maneuver. Another lawyer wrote a letter asking the governor to spare King's life.

"The Supreme Court cases say over and over again these trials are not about wins and losses but about the search for truth," said King's state-appointed lawyer Peter Cannon. "The state didn't search for truth, they wanted to win at all costs."

In federal court, Cannon asked for a stay and presented evidence that he said had been hidden from the defense for decades -- sworn statements from witnesses that could have been used to impeach their trial testimony. He presented a similar claim in circuit court last year, but used a legal twist to bring it up again at the federal level.

The motion was denied in federal court in Tampa late Monday, so the issue moves to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

Natalie 'Tillie" Brady, 68, was raped, stabbed, choked, beaten and left to die in her burning Tarpon Springs home. King, then 22, was a prisoner at a minimum-security work release center near her home. The night she died, King was discovered outside the center and stabbed a guard 15 times with a paring knife.

Documents released to the defense in 2001 include testimony by trial witnesses who helped link that knife to Mrs. Brady's kitchen. One told lawyers before the trial she couldn't identify the knife. Another had information useful to the defense but the defense didn't know it for years.

One document, a police radio report of a convenience store disturbance, supports King's alibi that he was at the store until about 3 a.m., the time Mrs. Brady was killed.

Other documents refute the time of death set by medical examiner Joan Wood, whose competence in other cases been challenged. In some reports, she set the time at between 1 a.m and 3 a.m., but at trial she set it at between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. The difference matters because King was accounted for at prison for most of that time. Mrs. Brady would have had to die very near 3 a.m. for King to have killed her.

The motion is King's "last best hope" said David Menschel, a lawyer with the Innocence Project in New York. Menschel wrote a detailed letter to Gov. Jeb Bush Monday asking him to give King life in prison without parole. He detailed all of the issues in King's case, including a lack of physical evidence tying him to the crime.

The attacker had King's blood type, but so does 22 percent of the population, Menschel said. The rape kit that could have been tested for DNA has been thrown away.

The prison guard said King's pants were bloody, but the pants have never been found.

"It's a troubling case," Menschel said.

Cannon does not have other motions prepared if all King's pending appeals are rejected, he said. The Florida Supreme Court Monday rejected a number of motions regarding document requests, the impartiality of a judge, and King's attempt to fire his lawyers.

King's last hope would be clemency.

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