A white dentist who shot a black man after shouting racial slurs claimed in an appeal that race was unfairly employed at trial.
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD
Published August 26, 2004
TAMPA - Despite Randy Puryear's claims that prosecutors unfairly injected race into his November 2002 trial, an appeals court Wednesday upheld the Town 'N Country dentist's second-degree murder conviction.
Puryear, who is white, is serving a 25-year prison sentence for the shooting death of Jemale Wells, a black father of two, during a confrontation on a Countryway cul-de-sac in September 2000.
Prosecutors said Puryear, angered by his girlfriend's claim that Wells had roughed up her son, stormed into Wells' neighborhood hurling racial slurs and brandishing a .357-caliber Magnum.
The gun went off when Wells charged Puryear. Puryear claimed he blacked out when it fired. Wells, 39, was killed.
In Puryear's appeal, attorney James Felman claimed that prosecutors characterized Puryear as a bigoted "rich white man" and improperly turned his trial into "a referendum on racial and economic justice."
Felman also argued that jurors should not have been allowed to hear a tape of an emotionally charged 911 call placed by a witness while Wells lay dying in the street. In the background, children could be heard screaming and crying.
While prosecutors argued the tape reflected the chaotic condition of the scene and might help explain inconsistencies in witness accounts, the defense argued the tape had no relevance.
The 2nd District Court of Appeal dismissed Puryear's claims with a terse 11/2 page ruling, declining even to discuss allegations of prosecutorial misconduct or the 911 tape.
Of the issues Puryear's lawyer raised, the court only discussed the matter of a prospective juror whom Hillsborough Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett bounced from the panel without giving the defense a chance to question him. The juror had expressed concern about whether he could render a fair verdict, having heard about the case beforehand.
The appeals court said the judge erred by dismissing the prospective juror without allowing the defense to examine him. However, because the defense later accepted the jury panel, the court ruled that Puryear had abandoned his objection.
"We are obviously very disappointed," said Felman, who broke the news by phone Wednesday to his client, who is incarcerated at Marion Correctional Institution in Lowell. "I expect we will be exhausting every available legal remedy." That would include asking the appeals court for a rehearing and, if failing there, taking the case to the Florida Supreme Court.
"In my personal view, the record reflects a smorgasbord of error from start to finish, including incorrect evidentiary rulings and pervasive prosecutorial misconduct," Felman said.
Prosecutor Curt Allen, who argued the case to the jury, said the appeals court's decision "gives us renewed faith that the system does work.
"We just presented the facts as they occurred that day," Allen said. "Our position is the person who injected race into this offense was Randy Puryear, by his comments and his actions."
