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In 1977, Mr. King was convicted of the rape-murder
of Natalie Brady and of an attack on James D. McDonough, a prison
counselor at the minimum-security facility where Mr. King was
incarcerated. While Mr. King admits to the altercation with Mr. McDonough,
he has always steadfastly maintained his innocence of the rape-murder of
Ms. Brady. Though the evidence implicating Mr. King in Ms. Brady’s
rape-murder at trial was limited and circumstantial, a jury found it
sufficient to convict him. However, when one takes into account the
racially charged nature of Mr. King’s trial, the critical evidence that
the state destroyed, the ineffectiveness of Mr. King’s legal counsel,
and new evidence that the State’s medical examiner who performed the
autopsy in the case was incompetent and possibly engaged in a pattern of
fraud, the already tenuous case against Mr. King is severely undermined.
In this new light, there is such substantial doubt about Mr. King’s
guilt that it would be irresponsible for the State of Florida to execute
him.
At trial, the case against Mr. King was limited. It
primarily consisted of opportunity evidence: Mr. King was residing at a
minimum-security prison located near the crime scene, and he was absent
from a routine bed-check around the time when Ms. Brady was believed to
have been murdered. The sole physical evidence linking Mr. King to the
murder is underwhelming: Mr. King’s blood type—a blood type shared by
twenty-two percent of the population—was consistent with the blood type
of semen found in the victim’s body. See
King v. Florida, 390 So. 2d 315, 317-318 (Fla. 1980); see also Trial Transcript, at 1905.
The most powerful evidence against Mr. King at trial
was also the most misleading. Prison counselor McDonough testified that
Mr. King had blood on his pants prior to their altercation, suggesting
that the blood may have resulted from Mr. King’s murder of Ms. Brady.
However, the prosecution never produced any physical evidence of such
blood. Although Mr. King’s clothes were examined for blood, no blood was
found.
See King v. Florida, 390 So. 2d
315, 317-318 (Fla. 1980); see also FBI
Laboratory Report, May 24, 1977.
Despite the paucity of evidence implicating him in
the Brady murder, Mr. King was found guilty and sentenced to death.
One cannot dismiss the possibility that the racially
charged nature of Mr. King’s trial may have played a role in the
verdict. Mr. King, a black man, was tried before an all-white jury for the
highly publicized, brutal rape-murder of a white woman. The trial occurred
in 1977, at a time when racial attitudes were not as tolerant as they are
today and at a time when it was not uncommon for prosecutors to exclude
citizens from a jury on the basis of their race. Indeed, for a prosecutor
to have assembled an all-white jury like the jury that tried Mr. King
would almost certainly have involved race-based exclusions.
Race indisputably played a pivotal role in Mr.
King’s resentencing. During voir
dire, the prosecution used one of its peremptory challenges to strike
a black female police department clerk from the jury. Mr. King’s counsel
objected and pointed out that, in addition to its strike against the black
police clerk, the state had used a previous strike to exclude a black
pastor from sitting on the jury. When asked by the judge to explain the
prosecution’s decision to strike the black police clerk, the assistant
state attorney admitted, “Okay. She [the prospective juror] is a young
black female[;] the Defendant is a young black male….” Despite this
bald admission by the prosecution that it had struck the juror on the
basis of race, the judge rejected Mr. King’s objection, because, at that
time, race-based strikes were only impermissible if the defendant could
demonstrate that race was the sole reason (and not merely one reason) for
the exclusion of the juror. See King
v. Moore, 196 F. 3d 1327, 1331-1334
(Fla. 1999).
Because of the role that race played both at Mr.
King’s trial and at his resentencing, one must question whether his
guilt or his sentence was determined by a jury of his peers.
Mr. King’s original trial was further tainted by
inadequate legal representation. In 1983, the United States Court of
Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ordered that Mr. King be resentenced
because Mr. King’s counsel had been ineffective during the sentencing
phase of his original trial. This same counsel that the court found to be
ineffective during the sentencing phase had represented Mr. King during
his trial’s guilt phase as well. See King
v. Strickland, 714 F. 2d 1481 (Fla. 1983).
Even though the Court of Appeals denied Mr. King’s
claim that his counsel was ineffective during the guilt phase, the court
conceded that, during the guilt phase, Mr. King’s counsel made “a
number of failures” which “raise some question as to
ineffectiveness” and “certainly give us some pause.” The Court of
Appeals was troubled by portions of the trial record in which Mr. King’s
attorney admitted to being overburdened, physically exhausted, and
unprepared for trial. In particular, the court cited the fact that, just
prior to trial, Mr. King’s attorney begged the judge in vain for more
time to prepare, declaring, “Judge, as an officer of the court, I cannot
give Amos King a fair trial today or this week.” On other occasions
during the trial, Mr. King’s counsel, clearly fatigued, pleaded,
“Judge, I am beat, I have got to go home and get some sleep,” and,
“I can’t think anymore.” So overworked and preoccupied by another
trial that had concluded only a few days before Mr. King’s trial began,
Mr. King’s counsel met with King only twice prior to trial. Furthermore,
Mr. King’s counsel was forced to take twenty-six depositions in one day
and was still taking depositions after King’s trial commenced. See King
v. Strickland, 714 F. 2d 1481, 1486-89 (Fla. 1983).
The Court of Appeals found Mr. King’s counsel
constitutionally deficient during the sentencing phase of the trial. And,
even though the Court of Appeals did not find a similar constitutional
deficiency with regard to counsel’s performance during the guilt phase,
the court did express grave concerns about that performance, stating,
“King was convicted on circumstantial evidence which however strong
leaves room for doubt that a skilled attorney might raise to a sufficient
level that… might convince a jury and a court that the ultimate penalty
should not be exacted, lest a mistake have been made.” Even if it was
not constitutionally deficient, the counsel’s performance during the
guilt phase was so poor as to raise serious questions about the
reliability of the trial outcome. This inadequate representation is all
the more troubling considering how minimal the evidence against Mr. King
was to begin with. See King v.
Strickland, 784 F. 2d 1462, 1464 (Fla. 1984); King
v. Strickland, 714 F. 2d 1481, 1491 (Fla. 1983).
Confidence in the trial outcome has been further
undermined by recent revelations that Joan Wood, the Pinellas County
Medical Examiner who provided key evidence against Mr. King at trial, was
incompetent and may have engaged in a pattern of scientific fraud in
criminal cases. In one case, Dr. Wood determined that a baby, seven
month-old Rebecca Long, had been shaken to death; however, four other
pathologists, including Jon Thogmartin, the current Pinellas County
Medical Examiner, have since concluded that Rebecca Long actually died of
pneumonia and that there was no evidence whatsoever to support Wood’s
original finding that Long had suffered a massive brain hemorrhage. Dr.
Wood’s autopsy of Rebecca Long was so sloppy that Wood failed to
discover the clear evidence of pneumonia and misidentified the deceased
girl as a boy. Because of these revelations in the Long case, State
Attorney Bernie McCabe dropped the charges that his office had previously
brought against the baby’s father. See Cary Davis, “Lawsuit
Blames Medical Examiner,” St.
Petersburg Times, December 17, 2002.
In another recent case, State Attorney McCabe asked a
judge to throw out the manslaughter conviction of John Peel after
pathologists reviewed Dr. Wood’s work in Peel’s case and again
determined that Wood’s conclusions were without foundation. See
“Questions Lead to Release,” Orlando
Sentinel, November 22, 2002. In yet another murder case, a judge ruled
that Wood’s testimony regarding the victim’s death by poisoning
included “errors,” “mistakes,” and “inaccuracies.” See Craig
Pittman, “Coroner’s Errors May Put Indictment in Question,”
St. Petersburg Times, August 17, 1994. Because her work in these and
numerous other cases was so thoroughly discredited, Dr. Wood was forced to
resign. See William Levesque, “Medical Examiner Retires,”
St. Petersburg Times, June 29, 2000.
In a 2002 editorial, the St.
Petersburg Times condemned Dr. Wood’s “incompetence” and
expressed concern that it is as yet unknown whether Dr. Wood was merely
“inept” or whether she was “disturbingly conspiratorial in [her]
zeal” to fabricate evidence in order to “hold someone accountable.”
The Times then asked
rhetorically, “How many other autopsies did Wood botch?” and it
called on State Attorney McCabe and Medical Examiner Thogmartin to
conduct a thorough review of Wood’s work, stressing that such a review
was “imperative in determining justice.” See “Medical
Examiner Needs to Rebuild Credibility of Office,” St. Petersburg Times, April 30, 2002.
It is this same Dr. Wood whose testimony about Ms.
Brady’s time of death was crucial to the state’s case against Amos
King. Because the state does not dispute Mr. King’s whereabouts for much
of the night of Ms. Brady’s murder – he was participating in a
state-run work-release program, was on a department of corrections bus,
and was signed-in by prison officials – if Dr. Wood’s estimate of the
time of death were off by just a small amount, Mr. King could not have
murdered Ms. Brady. Given that her credibility has been irreparably
damaged by her incompetent work in countless cases, Dr. Wood’s testimony
must be looked upon skeptically. Without her testimony, there is little
upon which Mr. King’s conviction can stand.
Furthermore, we now know that Dr. Wood destroyed the
one piece of evidence – Ms. Brady’s semen-infused vaginal washings –
that, if DNA tested, could establish Mr. King’s guilt or innocence with
certainty. Dr. Wood’s destruction of this evidence is not in itself
illegal. But, because of Dr. Wood’s suspect conduct in other cases, her
destruction of this crucial evidence in Mr. King’s case appears not only
unfortunate but potentially sinister. At present, it would be hasty to
execute Mr. King when the full extent and nature of Dr. Wood’s
improprieties have yet to be uncovered. See King
v. Florida, 808 So. 2d 1237, 1241-43 (Fla. 2002).
In a number of recent cases postconviction DNA
testing has been able to exonerate individuals like Frank Lee Smith who
were condemned to die by the state of Florida. Mr. King lost his similar
chance to conclusively prove his innocence when Joan Wood destroyed the
semen-infused vaginal washings, the one piece of biological evidence that
could have produced definitive DNA test results.
The judicial system has reviewed Mr. King’s
conviction and determined that Mr. King legally may be executed by the
people of the State of Florida. Nevertheless, as our nation’s 123
postconviction DNA exonerations demonstrate and as Florida’s 25 death
row exonerations demonstrate, the legal system is as fallible as the human
beings who administer it. While the DNA testing which you ordered for Mr.
King could not conclusively show that he is innocent, the only difference
between the 123 postconviction DNA exonerations and Mr. King’s case may
be that, in Mr. King’s case, DNA testing of the available evidence was
unable to yield conclusive results.
Quite simply, the limited nature of the state’s
initial case against Mr. King, the flaws in Mr. King’s trial, and the
new evidence that has emerged since his trial provide ample reason to
doubt his guilt. The state would be reckless to execute Mr. King in the
face of such substantial doubt when life imprisonment without parole
remains an available alternative.
The legal system is increasingly relying on the power
of executive clemency to act as a safeguard against wrongful executions in
uncertain cases like Mr. King’s. Governor
Bush recognized when granting the stay for DNA testing in this case that
the state’s ultimate nightmare is the execution of an innocent man.
Unfortunately, but significantly, this weighty responsibility rests in his
hands. With this in mind, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
implores Governor Bush to exhibit the courage and decency to avoid the
tragic possibility of a wrongful execution and to commute Mr. King’s
sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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