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| Wednesday, February 26, 2003 | Updated: 1:00
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Death row veteran to receive lethal
injection
By Staci
Zavattaro
Alligator Writer |
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DAVID ZENTZ / ALLIGATOR STAFF
Amos King, 48, speaks at a press conference
Tuesday maintaining his innocence to the 1977 rape and murder
of Natalie Brady in Tarpon Springs. King is scheduled to die
by lethal injection today.
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| STARKE – At 6 p.m.
today, Amos King’s battle with the justice system could end.
King waits on death row at Florida State Prison for the 1977
rape and murder of 68-year-old Natalie Brady in her Tarpon Springs
home.
At a press conference Tuesday, 48-year-old King
maintained his innocence even though he was caught sneaking back
into a work-release prison in the area with bloodied
clothes.
King said Tuesday he was in the Tarpon Springs
Community Correctional Center the entire time of the murder and
could even attest to other inmates’ behaviors.
“I’m telling
everyone what’s going on at the place while I’m supposed to be
missing,” said King, who sat in a cafeteria-style room wearing an
orange prison shirt, blue jeans and silver handcuffs.
However, King previously admitted to escaping from the
Tarpon Springs facility, fighting with and stabbing James McDonough,
a counselor at the center.
A death row veteran of more than
20 years, inmate #036275 also said his slew of lawyers and the
system failed him and those who testified against him had no qualms
with distorting the facts.
“People got no ethics, no morals
when it comes to manipulating evidence,” King said, adding that his
previous lawyers, including present counsel Peter Cannon, sabotaged
his chances for another stay. “I think for the last few months
[Cannon’s] been like a walking zombie.”
Cannon, who began
working on the case in October, said comments like that do not
bother him and understands King’s animosity.
“He’s got no
reason to trust any lawyer because a bad lawyer, his defense
attorney, put him there, and he’s been trying to get back into court
to try to prove his innocence,” said Cannon, who works for the
Capital Collateral Regional Counsel in Tampa. “All he’s used to is a
system that’s just failed for him. The fact that my client is [going
to be] executed bothers me.”
Cannon said the CCRC enlisted
the help of Barry Scheck from the New York-based Innocence Project,
a nonprofit group that conducts post-conviction DNA testing.
Scheck said tests were conducted on fingernail scrapings,
pubic hair samples and hairs from a nightgown. But, the rape kit
taken from Brady, which could have yielded the most evidence, was
never found.
“We feel very badly about this,” he said. “Most
importantly, you know we feel badly because it’s one of those cases
where evidence that could really shed different light on the
question of innocence is unavailable, so we’ll never
know.”
While King managed to escape execution under three
different governors, members of Floridians for Alternatives to the
Death Penalty plan to protest in Starke and around the state today.
“In particular [today] we plan to be louder than normal,”
said Abe Bonowitz, FADP director. “We’ll be banging some
drums.”
He said his group advocates giving convicted felons
life in prison without parole rather than the death sentence.
Further, he said inmates should work if they are able.
About
a dozen members plan on attending tonight’s execution to let people
know that the state is not doing this in their name, Bonowitz said.
“The fact is, they’re killing a man who is innocent,” he
added. “If you can’t prove that he did it, how can you kill
him?”
But this lethal injection could bring closure to
residents in the Florida town who knew Brady well.
“If
finally at 6 [today] justice is finally done with this thing, then I
think everybody can maybe get on and move forward,” said Mark
LeCouris, Tarpon Springs police chief whose father was chief during
the murder. “I don’t think everybody around here who remembers and
is involved can move forward until that’s done.”
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