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Death case lawyer defends tactic

A scathing Supreme Court minority opinion says Joe Episcopo ill served a convicted murderer by arguing his innocence in the penalty phase.

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published September 1, 2006

TAMPA - The Florida Supreme Court upheld a death sentence Thursday for a Tampa killer, but two dissenting justices had some unusually harsh language for the man's attorney, cable news show staple Joe Episcopo.

Even as the court said the death sentence for Patrick Charles Hannon should stand, two justices called Episcopo's representation of Hannon in the trial's penalty phase a "classic example of legal incompetency."

Justice Harry Lee Anstead said Episcopo failed to investigate and present to jurors reasons why his client should live. The defense attorney maintained "a head-in-the-sand posture" that his client was innocent, Anstead said, despite a jury finding him guilty of a January 1991 double slaying.

Justice Barbara J. Pariente concurred with the dissenting opinion.

At age 26, Hannon was convicted of slitting one man's throat and shooting another man six times in a North Tampa apartment. Investigators suspected revenge as a motive because one of the victims had threatened a woman Hannon knew.

During trial, Hannon maintained that he was not present during the killings. Attorneys agreed that a bloody handprint and fingerprint found in the apartment belonged to Hannon, but Episcopo said the blood came from pork chops and not the victims.

Episcopo, a longtime Tampa lawyer with a clean Florida Bar record, said his client also insisted on presenting a "not guilty" strategy during the penalty phase, despite the trial judge's warnings against doing so.

"I don't think it's fair that Anstead is blaming me," said Episcopo, who had not read the 120-page majority and dissenting opinions as of Thursday afternoon. A reporter shared the highlights. "He's trying to second-guess me when he wasn't privy to a lot of conversations that I had with my client."

Episcopo, a former state and federal prosecutor, is perhaps best known for his regular appearances for legal commentary on cable TV shows, including Nancy Grace, The Abrams Report and Larry King Live. He tried six death penalty cases as a prosecutor; Hannon's case was his first as a defense attorney.

Hannon initially refused to let anyone testify to try to spare his life but relented and allowed Episcopo to argue it was out of his client's character to commit murder.

"What we're asking you to do is to give him a chance to clear his name, and he's going to need a lot of time," Episcopo said at trial. "If you put him on death row, he's got six years. That's not enough time."

But Anstead said Episcopo never sought out other factors that might have bolstered his client's case: Hannon's heavy drinking and drug use, his checkered military service, his troubled home life or possible brain damage.

Anstead said Hannon should be entitled to a new sentencing proceeding.

"The case before us today presents a classic example of legal incompetency where it hurts the most - by counsel's blatant failure to investigate or present a case for life for a defendant already found guilty of capital first-degree murder," Anstead wrote.

The four justices in the majority, however, said Episcopo had "specific tactical and calculated reasons" for his strategy. They agreed that Hannon failed to prove he had ineffective counsel at the trial or penalty phase.

"Counsel's adoption of a strategy that focused on Hannon's character was the product of discussions with not only Hannon, but with his most intimate family members," the majority opinion said.

Episcopo said he made the right decision in this case, even if a couple of jurors called him afterward to try to convince him that his client was guilty.

"If we had gone the other route and lost, then it would have been, 'You didn't follow your client's wishes,' " Episcopo said. "And he's the one who was on trial for his life."

Colleen Jenkins can be reached at (813) 226-3337 or cjenkins@sptimes.com.

[Last modified September 1, 2006, 05:50:33]