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CHASE SQUIRESThe judge ruled Alfredie Steele Jr.'s description of the death of a sheriff's deputy is admissible in trial.
DADE CITY - Alfredie Steele Jr.'s own words - a tearful apology for killing a popular Pasco County sheriff's deputy - can be used against him at trial, a judge ruled Friday.
Circuit Judge Lynn Tepper rejected public defender Tom Hanlon's arguments that investigators used Steele's mother to snare her son and then intimidated him to the point of confessing.
Steele, 19, is facing a possible death sentence if convicted of first-degree murder in the June 1 sniper attack on Sheriff's Office Lt. Charles "Bo" Harrison.
Harrison was 57 and days away from retirement when he was shot in the back on duty as he sat in his cruiser outside a Trilacoochee nightclub.
Over two days of hearings last month and in an hour of legal arguments Friday, Hanlon tried to have Tepper exclude two videotaped statements Steele made to detectives.
Hanlon argued that detectives used Steele's mother as their agent to illegally bring him to them for questioning. And after that, when deputies sent Steele home after questioning, they left him feeling intimidated and surrounded at his house.Fearing for his life if he didn't go in for a second round of interrogation, Steele asked to speak to deputies and described how he got drunk and fired at Harrison's car. Steele told investigators he didn't know Harrison was in the patrol car.
"Freddie's fear was all orchestrated, carried out and planned by the Pasco County Sheriff's Office and the State Attorney's Office," Hanlon said.
Hanlon pointed out that Steele's fear that deputies would storm his house, kill him or harm his mother was real and intimidating.
Prosecutor Phil Van Allen argued deputies did nothing wrong. Steele's mother, Regina Clemmons, wanted to find her son to keep him safe, not to help deputies, Van Allen said. And if Steele imagined a threat against him, it was not the deputies' fault.
"What his motivation was for coming back (to the Sheriff's Office) is his fault. It's his problem," Van Allen said.
In a videotaped interrogation, Steele apologized for shooting "Mr. Bobo," as he called Harrison: "I just pulled the trigger and ran. ... I didn't mean to kill Mr. Bobo. I'm sorry, Mr. Bobo."
In another development Friday in Steele's case, a panel of judges at the 2nd District Court of Appeal reversed one of Tepper's earlier rulings that required prosecutors to warn Hanlon in advance what reasons they planned to argue for subjecting Steele to the death penalty, if he is convicted.
But the judges upheld Tepper's ruling that jurors will have to reveal what reasons they have for granting the death penalty, if they do recommend it.
The appeals court recommended both issues be reviewed by the state Supreme Court, which has the option. If the higher court does take up the issue, it could spell another delay in the case.
Steele's trial is scheduled for June 14.