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Linroy Bottoson was poisoned to death in the name of the people of Florida on December 6, 2002 in revenge for his murder of Catherine Alexander. Mr. Bottoson did not dispute his guilt. The following summation is edited from a St. Petersburg Times editorial. Read the full editorial at <http://www.sptimes.com/News/021000/Opinion/Rush_to_death.shtml>. Linroy Bottoson's case illustrates some of the chronic failures that have plagued Florida's death-penalty system for decades: the barriers to adequate representation, the complications of mental illness and the injustices of a flawed prosecution. Bottoson's crime was ugly. He was convicted of kidnapping a 74-year-old woman, holding her captive for three days, stabbing her 16 times and then running over her with his car. But Bottoson's case has never been clear-cut, and even with the delays, the questions surrounding his sentence left the Florida Supreme Court sharply divided as recently as 1996. For one thing, Bottoson was represented in his original 1981 trial by a young, inexperienced lawyer who knew little about presenting a capital defense. At the time, the state mandated fee caps that discouraged seasoned lawyers from defending inmates. Under the flat $2,500 cap, Bottoson's trial lawyer was paid the equivalent of $13 an hour. Bottoson got what the government paid for. Despite convincing evidence of Bottoson's long history of mental illness that could have persuaded a jury and judge against a death sentence, the young lawyer failed to raise the issue at trial. The lawyer explained to the judge that he could not afford to call witnesses, noting that "it all boils down to the fact that the county, the state (and) the Legislature (have) placed restrictions on my ability to conduct a meaningful defense on behalf of Mr. Bottoson." Bottoson's direct appeal was denied three years after his sentence. Facing his next level of appeals, Bottoson was at a disadvantage. The state had not yet created the current system of state-funded post-conviction lawyers for death-row inmates, and Bottoson did not have a lawyer. At the urging of the American Bar Association, Orlando lawyer James Russ, a sole practitioner, agreed to take Bottoson's case for free. He filed the next appeal in accordance with the deadlines. Then, according to Russ, nothing happened. The trial judge remained silent for nearly 10 years until he finally agreed to hear Bottoson's claims that his trial lawyer was inadequate, that a nationally respected dog handler called as a key witness by the state was later revealed to be a fraud and that Bottoson's long history of paranoid schizophrenia should disqualify him from execution. In 1996, a divided Florida Supreme Court rejected the appeal. A strong dissent written by Justice Gerald Kogan and signed by two others took the state of Florida to task for its notorious record of denying death-row inmates adequate counsel. Kogan said Bottoson's inexperienced trial lawyer and his pathetic fee resulted in a "clear and unmistakable deficiency in performance." Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty is concerned that yet again, Florida's death penalty was used on a mentally ill man who had insufficient legal representation. Write to the Governor of Florida: Governor Jeb Bush If you are writing from outside of Florida, please send a copy of your letter to: The Tallahassee Democrat If you are writing from within Florida, please send a copy of
your letter to your local news paper(s), along with a letter to the
editor marked "for publication." You might also try
simply marking your letter to Jeb! "for publication," and
perhaps they'll run that! As always, FADP requests that if your
letter is printed, please send us an original of the full page on
which the letter appears, to the address shown below.
FLORIDIANS FOR ALTERNATIVES TO THE DEATH PENALTY
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