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The ultimate decision

She kept clients off death row as lawyer. But as a judge she had to decide whether to sentence someone to die.

By CHRIS TISCH
Published January 7, 2006

[Times photos: Lara Cerri]

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Linda Allan listens Friday to former Big Lots worker Karen Smith talk about the day of John Cardoso's murder on Christmas Eve in 1997.

	Former Big Lots assistant manager Karen Smith, left, hugs Susan Cardoso outside the courtroom after Judge Linda Allan sentenced the man who killed Cardoso's husband in 1997.
	Charles C. Peterson was given a chance to negotiate a plea deal for a life sentence in the murder, but chose to go to trial instead. A jury took about 10 hours to convict him of murder.

LARGO - In the decade that Pinellas Judge Linda Allan spent as a criminal lawyer, she defended people who faced the death penalty. Not one was sent to death row.

Three years ago, Allan was elected to a circuit judgeship. Since then, she has sentenced hundreds of criminals to prison, some for the rest of their lives.

But on Friday afternoon, Allan faced one of the toughest decisions of her legal career. For the first time as a judge, she had to decide whether a person should live or die.

At 3:27 p.m., Allan entered her courtroom. She glanced at the shackled man in the blue jumpsuit before her.

Then, in a calm and steady voice, she began to read her decision.

The man before Allan was Charles C. Peterson, already serving nine concurrent life sentences for a series of violent robberies and rapes.

Over a 20-year criminal career, Peterson held up dollar stores, gas stations and department stores.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison after a conviction for a 1981 robbery. He got out 10 years later, but remained on lifetime parole.

On Christmas Eve 1997, a robber lay in wait inside the Big Lots store in the Tyrone area of St. Petersburg as employees got ready to close. The robber, who wore a mask, then sprang on the workers. He forced one employee, 48-year-old John Cardoso, onto his knees, then shot him in the back, killing him.

The robbery was strikingly similar to a Valentine's Day robbery at a dollar store in Tampa that same year. In that holdup, a masked man raped two female clerks and robbed the business after closing time.

Police began to suspect Peterson. They followed him around town, then saw him spit on the road while stopped at a traffic light on his motorcycle. Police sopped up the spit and compared it to DNA left at the scene of the Tampa robbery.

Peterson was charged and convicted of that crime. In March 2000, he was charged with the Big Lots murder. Prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty because of a number of "aggravators" that portrayed Peterson as someone deserving the ultimate punishment.

For one, Peterson was on parole at the time of the murder. He had 13 previous convictions for violent felonies on his record. His crime also occurred during the commission of a robbery.

Peterson was given an opportunity to negotiate a plea deal for a life sentence, but he opted to head to trial instead.

After more than a week of testimony in July, a jury took about 10 hours to convict Peterson of murder.

The same jurors returned for a sentencing hearing. They listened as Peterson's defense attorneys argued that the case was just a robbery gone bad. They also said Peterson couldn't appreciate the gravity of his crimes, that he had a stunted maturity level and a low IQ.

The 12-member jury voted 8-4 to recommend death.

In Florida, the final decision on life or death is up to the judge, though he or she must give great weight to the jury's recommendation. In nearly all cases, judges go along with the jury's suggestion.

On Friday afternoon, Peterson sat between his lawyers as Allan spent 45 minutes reading the first 15 pages of her 17-page sentencing order, which recounted the facts of the case and some case law.

Then she asked Peterson to stand.

Twenty-three years ago, another Pinellas judge was in the same situation. Judge Susan Schaeffer was considered one of the leading death penalty defense attorneys. She personally opposed the practice.

Just a year after Schaeffer became a judge, a death penalty case came before her. The defendant was named Milo Rose. A jury had convicted him of using a concrete block to bludgeon a man to death in a Clearwater parking lot. Jurors voted 9-3 for the death penalty.

With tears in her eyes and tremble in her throat, Schaeffer condemned Rose to die in the electric chair. Then she hurried off the bench.

Schaeffer estimates another 50 or so death penalty cases were tried in her courtroom before she retired in 2004. She sentenced eight men to death row. Not one has yet been executed.

Schaeffer said those death sentences were the most difficult decisions she made from the bench.

"You might personally disagree with the death penalty, but it's the law," Schaeffer said. "You as a judge have to follow the law."

Schaeffer said she often wrote her sentencing orders at home, pacing the floor.

"It always took some emotional toll," she said. "I think any time you're having to do something that you personally oppose, but legally are obliged to do, it's difficult to do."

Schaeffer said she always looked into the face of the person she was condemning and said: "May God have mercy on your soul."

"I could never say those words without having something overwhelm me at the moment," she said. "I was a human being feeling the awesome emotions for what I had done to a fellow human being."

If Allan, 50, was feeling any emotion Friday afternoon, she didn't show it.

"The aggravating circumstances in this case are atrocious," she said calmly.

Allan said she gave some weight to the mitigating circumstances, but found they didn't come close to saving Peterson's life.

She sentenced him to death.

Peterson also showed no emotion. He was quickly fingerprinted and taken away.

Outside the courtroom, Cardoso's family said they were pleased with the sentence. Peterson's family did not attend.

Reached at her home Friday evening, Allan sounded tired, spent.

She declined to answer questions about the case, but offered this statement:

"Judges are required to make difficult decisions virtually every day that have profound effects on people's lives. Decisions involving serious consequences are uniquely hard and emotionally draining. They are only arrived at after much thought and often sleepless nights and uneaten meals."

[Last modified January 7, 2006, 01:25:29]