Ruling will spare 3 Florida killers

At 17, James Bonifay ignored the pleas of an auto-parts store worker begging for his life, and then cursed his victim's family before shooting the Pensacola man dead.

Escambia County jurors later decided Bonifay should be executed for killing Billy Wayne Coker in 1991, and judges agreed to place Bonifay on death row.

But in a landmark ruling Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bonifay and others like him cannot be sentenced to death because they killed when they were younger than 18.

"The Supreme Court gave him what he wouldn't give his victim, and that is a second chance at life," said David Rimmer, the Pensacola assistant state attorney who prosecuted Bonifay during his second trial. "This guy cannot be executed. I think it's just an outrageous miscarriage of justice."

Two other convicted killers in Florida -- Cleo LeCroy and Nathan Ramirez -- also will have their death sentences commuted because they were not yet 18 when they killed. All were 17 when they murdered.

LeCroy likely will be eligible for parole, because his crimes occurred before tougher sentencing guidelines kicked in during the mid-'90s, state officials said. Bonifay may also have a chance at parole, but Ramirez is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

While the decision frustrated some in Florida's law-enforcement community, anti-death-penalty activists and some criminal-defense lawyers viewed the decision as long-overdue recognition that a civilized nation shouldn't execute juveniles.

"This is a good day for our country and for Florida, and this decision effectively spares the lives of three Florida death-row prisoners," said Abe Bonowitz, director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty based in Gainesville.

"I am pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld the fundamental principle that a just society should not be executing its children," state Rep. Phillip Brutus, D-North Miami, said Tuesday. "Without defending the horrible crimes committed by troubled youths, decency requires that we find a better way to punish these children."

In Central Florida, prosecutors did not recall cases in the pipeline in which they were considering seeking the death penalty for any defendants who were 17 when they committed their crimes.

One murder defendant, Blaine Barber, was nine days short of 18 at the time of his shooting crime in Brevard County last year. He is headed to trial, but prosecutors on Feb. 7 announced they would not be seeking the death penalty in his case.

Robert Wesley, Orange-Osceola public defender, said the youth factor had been discouraging some prosecutors from pursuing the death penalty recently as successive state- and federal-court decisions found against juvenile executions.

In Florida, the state Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that the state constitution banned the execution of 16-year-olds. But the constitutional provision was changed in 2002, creating the possibility that murderers that age could be executed.

"It was really necessary," Wesley said of Tuesday's ruling. "Kids do not have the same wisdom, judgment and insight as adults have."

Wesley added that the prospect of life in prison without parole for a 17-year-old cannot be considered a light sentence.

In Palm Beach County, where Cleo LeCroy committed his crime 23 years ago, a spokesman for State Attorney Barry Krischer said his office hasn't sought the ultimate penalty against a juvenile since Krischer took office in 1993.

Mike Edmondson said Krischer was not philosophically opposed to the death penalty for juveniles but thought the cases face too many challenges on appeal to pursue.

"It alleviates a significant amount of appellate issues and brings closure to the survivors much more readily if they [the accused] get life in prison," Edmondson said. "I think if you talk to most prosecutors, they'd tell you the death penalty for juveniles has been so eroded, it's lost its effectiveness."

Edmondson was unfamiliar with LeCroy's case and had no comment on the prospect that he might be eligible for parole in the future.

Now 41, LeCroy was convicted of shooting a pair of Miami newlyweds who were camping in rural Palm Beach County south of Lake Okeechobee in January 1981. The bodies of John and Gail Hardeman were discovered a week after they failed to return home from their honeymoon. John Hardeman had been shot in the head, and his wife in the head, neck and chest.

Of the three Florida death-row inmates directly affected by Tuesday's ruling, LeCroy may have benefited the most.

Bob Sparks, a spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office, which handles death-penalty-case appeals for the state, said LeCroy might be eligible for parole after 25 years in prison because his crime occurred before stricter sentencing laws.

LeCroy has been incarcerated since 1986, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

Ramirez, now 27, was on death row for killing 71-year-old Mildred Boroski, who was shot after being raped and abducted from her Pasco County home in 1995.

Bonifay, now 31, was condemned for the mistaken-identity shooting death of Billy Wayne Coker in Pensacola in 1991. Bonifay meant to kill Daniel Wells, whom Bonifay's cousin blamed for getting him fired.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Anthony Colarossi can be reached at 407-420-6218 or acolarossi@orlandosentinel.com. Maya Bell can be reached at 305-810-5003 or mbell@orlandosentinel.com.