PUBLISHED THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2003

Hill execution set for Sept. 3

Bush signs death warrant for local abortion opponent

Ginny Graybiel
@PensacolaNewsJournal.com

Paul Hill, the unrepentant killer of a doctor and his volunteer escort at a Pensacola abortion clinic nine years ago, is scheduled to be executed Sept. 3.

Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday signed a death warrant for the former Presbyterian minister and Pensacola resident, who was on the fringe of the movement opposing abortion as he promoted the "justifiable homicide" of abortion providers.

Four years ago, in an interview from death row, a smiling Hill told a Knight Ridder news reporter: "I wouldn't advise them to give me my shotgun back and let me go unless they wanted a similar outcome."

Hill, now 49, gunned down Dr. John Britton, 69, and his escort, retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Barrett, 74, as they emerged from Barrett's pickup at The Ladies Center on North Ninth Avenue on July 29, 1994. He wounded Barrett's wife, June, who also was in the truck.

Florida Department of Corrections officials said Hill will be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. at the state prison in Starke, where he has been held since his conviction. The death warrant runs from Sept. 2 through Sept. 9.

June Barrett, 77, who moved from Pensacola to a retirement community in Silver Springs, Md., said Wednesday she was pleased to learn about the impending execution from a state victim advocate.

"I think it's timely," she said. "It's past time."

The Barretts were active in Pensacola's abortion-rights movement. They provided local transportation for Britton, who flew to Pensacola from his home in Fernandina Beach every Friday to perform abortions at the clinic.

June Barrett remains involved in a number of abortion-rights groups and serves on the board of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

She said she wrote Bush two years ago urging him to sign a death warrant but received no response. She will decide during the next several days whether attending the execution will help her resolve her lingering grief.

"I feel like I'd like to be involved," she said. "I may come down a few days before."

Circuit Judge Frank Bell sentenced Hill to death in 1994 after disallowing a defense that the shootings were justified to prevent the greater harm of abortion. Hill represented himself, offered only brief opening and closing statements focusing on his opposition to abortion and cross-examined no witnesses.

The Florida Supreme Court upheld Hill's conviction and sentence during a mandatory appeal in 1996. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider the case in 1997 when attorney Roger Frechette of New Haven, Conn., took an appeal to the federal courts over Hill's objections.

Bell granted Hill's request to dismiss his lawyers in 1999. Since that time, there has been no further litigation.

Hill, married with three children, became a frequent protester at Pensacola abortion clinics in 1993, carrying signs that read "Execute Abortionists and Accessories" and shouting angry rhetoric. There was little inkling that he actually would turn those words into violent action.

But, when the Barretts and Britton arrived at The Ladies Center about 7:30 a.m. July 29, Hill stepped aside to let their truck pass.

When James Barrett got out of the vehicle, Hill fired four times with a shotgun purchased two days before at a local gun shop. The shots struck Barrett in the head and upper body.

Hill then moved closer to the truck, loaded three more shells and fired at Britton, who was still sitting in the passenger seat. Hit in the head and arm, Britton died within seconds.

June Barrett hid on the floor of the truck. She was shot once in the arm.

Hill calmly walked away. He was arrested within minutes on North Ninth Avenue.

As he was escorted to a police patrol car, Hill told an officer: "I know one thing. No innocent babies are going to be killed in that clinic today."

The Britton and Barrett murders added to Pensacola's grim reputation as a focal point for abortion-related violence beginning in the mid-1980s.

Police were routinely on guard at the two local clinics - The Ladies Center, now known as Community Healthcare Center, and Pensacola Medical Services at Cordova Square.

On Christmas Day 1984, Pensacola residents Matt Goldsby and James Simmons, both 21, bombed The Ladies Center and the offices of two doctors who performed abortions, calling their act "a gift to Jesus." Goldsby's girlfriend, Kaye Wiggins, and Simmons' wife, Kathren, played minor roles in the sloppily planned event in which no one was injured.

Goldsby and Simmons served about half of their 10-year prison terms. The women were sentenced to probation.

Local activist John Burt orchestrated numerous rowdy protests at local clinics, once showing up with a 4-month-old fetus that he called "Baby Charlie."

Burt recently was arrested on charges of molesting a teenage girl. He is being held at Santa Rosa County Jail as he awaits trial.

Numerous fanatical protesters from throughout the nation converged on the city again and again. Among them were Joan Andrews, a Tennessee woman who burst into The Ladies Center in 1986 and destroyed a machine used to perform abortions, and John Brockhoeft, a Kentucky man who was caught before he carried out plans to blow up The Ladies Center with an arsenal of weapons he brought to town in 1988.

In 1993, Michael Griffin of Pensacola shot and killed Dr. David Gunn, 47, of Eufaula, Ala., as he arrived at Pensacola Medical Services. Griffin is serving a life sentence in prison.