John Freeman was sentenced to death by the State of Florida for the murder of Leonard Collier during a robbery. According to court documents John Freeman broke into a home and was attempting to rob it when he was encountered by Leonard Collier. The two began to struggle and John Freeman would strike Leonard Collier in the head over a dozen times with his gun causing his death. John Freeman would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
John D. Freeman (Freeman) was convicted of first-degree felony murder for the 1986 killing of Leonard Collier (Collier). Freeman was sentenced to death, and both the conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal. See Freeman v. State, 563 So.2d 73 (Fla.1990). Collier caught Freeman in the act of burglarizing his home. Freeman claimed that Collier pointed a gun at him and threatened to shoot him to prevent his escape. The two struggled over the gun and fell outside into the front yard. When Freeman obtained possession of the gun, he used the gun to repeatedly strike Collier in the head ten to twelve times. Collier died from the head wounds.
Richard Anderson was sentenced to death by the State of Florida for the murder of Robert Grantham. According to court documents Richard Anderson would shoot and kill Robert Grantham during a robbery. Richard Anderson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Anderson’s conviction rested primarily upon the trial testimony of his girlfriend, Connie Beasley. Beasley testified at trial that in 1987 Grantham had offered her $30,000 in exchange for her sexual favors. She rejected Grantham’s offer but told Anderson of the proposal. Beasley testified that Anderson believed Grantham was rich and would return from a gambling trip to Las Vegas with a lot of money. Anderson told her to agree to spend one night with Grantham for $10,000. Anderson and Beasley prearranged for her to get Grantham drunk, after which Anderson would rob him. Beasley agreed to implement the plan by meeting Grantham on May 7, 1987, when he returned from Las Vegas. Following drinks and dinner, Beasley lured Grantham to Anderson’s apartment. Anderson arrived later, ostensibly to return Beasley’s car and to request a ride. Grantham agreed to drive Anderson, and Anderson insisted that Beasley join them. While in the car, Anderson shot Grantham four times and left Grantham’s body in a wooded area. He then drove to the Tampa Airport, abandoned the car, and returned with Beasley to the apartment. He cut open Grantham’s satchel and found $2,600.
The state also presented the testimony of two of Anderson’s business acquaintances. David Barile testified that Anderson had told him the day after the murder that he had shot a man four times and dumped his body in the woods. Larry Moyer testified that Anderson had said on June 2, 1987, that he and his girlfriend “wasted a guy that was supposed to have a million dollars, and he only had $3,000.” A firearms expert testified that four discharged .22-caliber cartridge casings found in Grantham’s car had been fired from a pistol recovered from the Hillsborough River. Florida Department of Law Enforcement (“FDLE”) agents recovered the pistol near the bridge where, according to Beasley, Anderson had thrown it.
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Anderson refused to permit defense counsel to call any witnesses on his behalf during the penalty phase. Defense counsel merely introduced the information charging Beasley, Anderson’s girlfriend, with third-degree murder, to show that Anderson was treated more harshly than Beasley. The jury recommended the death penalty by an eleven-to-one vote. The trial court found two aggravating circumstances [Anderson had been convicted of another capital felony, and the murder was committed for pecuniary gain in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner], a single mitigating circumstance [Beasley had been allowed to plead guilty to murder in the third degree, which carried a maximum sentence of three year’s imprisonment], and imposed the death penalty.
Randall Jones was sentenced to death by the State of Florida for a robbery double murder. According to court documents Randall Jones would shoot and kill two people Matthew Brock and Kelly Perry. Randall Jones would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
During the evening of July 26, 1987, Jones and his codefendant, Chris Reesh, went target shooting with a 30-30-caliber rifle near Rodman Dam in Putnam County. Jones’s car became stuck in the sand pits. At about midnight, they flagged down a fisherman who was leaving the area and asked if he could pull them out. The fisherman indicated that he could not but told them to seek help from the driver of a Chevrolet pickup truck parked in the parking lot. Inside the cab of the pickup Matthew Paul Brock and Kelly Lynn Perry were sleeping.
Between 12:30 and 1:30 a.m., a twelve-year-old boy who was camping at the Rodman Dam Campground awoke to the sound of three gunshots fired in rapid succession. Later that morning, a Rodman Dam concession worker noticed cigarette packets, broken glass, and blood in the parking lot. She followed a trail of blood and drag marks across the parking lot for about 160 yards to a wooded area where she discovered Brock’s body lying in the underbrush. She called the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office. During the search of the area, deputies discovered Perry’s partially clothed body about twenty-five feet deeper into the underbrush.
At trial, Dr. Bonofacia Flora, a forensic pathologist, testified that Brock died instantly from two wounds to the head from a high-powered rifle. Perry died from a single shot to the forehead, also caused by a high-powered rifle.
Matthew Brock’s brother and sister-in-law testified to having seen the victim’s pickup, while in Jones’s possession, parked at a convenience store in Green Cove Springs at approximately 7 a.m. on July 27. They observed bullet holes in the windshield and a 30-30-caliber rifle inside. Richard Brock confronted Jones, who was a stranger to him, and asked him where he got the truck. Jones told him he had just purchased the truck for $4,000 and drove away.
On August 16, Jones was arrested in Kosciusko, Mississippi, by the Mississippi Highway Patrol for possession of a stolen motor vehicle. The next day, Detective David Stout and Lieutenant Chris Hord of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office interviewed Jones in Mississippi. Lieutenant Hord testified that after advising Jones of his Miranda [v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966)] rights, Jones gave a statement implicating himself at the scene but blaming Reesh for having shot both victims. Jones admitted driving the pickup to Mississippi, where he planned to get rid of it. In addition to signing a waiver-of-rights form, Jones also signed a consent to search the trailer in which he had been living at the Lighthouse Children’s Home in Mississippi. In the trailer, Detective Stout recovered pay stubs from Perry’s employer in Palatka bearing her fingerprint. A calendar bearing Perry’s name was also recovered from the bottom of a nearby dumpster.
On August 20, Jones was transported from Mississippi to Florida. Lieutenant Hord testified that at the outset of the trip, he reminded Jones that his Miranda rights were still in effect. Jones then volunteered a second statement which was reduced to writing and signed after their arrival at the Putnam County jail. In this statement, Jones admitted that his earlier statement was true, except that he had reversed his and Reesh’s roles in the murder.
The state’s case was completed with the testimony of Rhonda Morrell, who was Jones’s ex-fiancee. She testified that Jones had told her that he had taken her father’s rifle for target shooting and that “he had shot those two people. He didn’t remember doing it, but he had done it.” She also testified that Jones had told her that he had pawned the rifle, and she identified Jones’s signature on a pawn ticket dated August 19, 1987. The rifle was retrieved from a Jacksonville gun and pawn shop.
Jones offered no evidence during the guilt phase. The jury returned guilty verdicts on all charges.
Daniel Burns was sentenced to death by the State of Florida for the murder of a police officer. According to court documents Daniel Burns would shoot to death Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Jeff Young during a traffic stop. Daniel Burns would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
According to testimony at trial, the victim, Jeff Young, a Florida Highway Patrol Trooper, stopped an automobile with Michigan tags that was being driven north on Interstate 75 by Burns. According to Burns’ passenger, Samuel Williams, he and Burns were returning to Detroit from Fort Myers. Prior to making the trip, Williams overheard Burns say that he was going to make a couple of trips to Florida to purchase about $10,000 worth of cocaine. According to Williams, Trooper Young approached the car after pulling them over and asked Burns and Williams for identification. He then returned to the patrol car to use the radio. The highway patrol dispatcher testified that Trooper Young requested a registration check on the Michigan tag and a wanted persons’ check. Williams further testified that Young returned to the vehicle and asked to search it. After searching the passenger compartment, Young asked to search the trunk, which Burns voluntarily opened. According to Williams, Burns and Trooper Young began to struggle after the officer found what “look[ed] like cocaine” in a bank bag that was in the trunk.
Several passersby who witnessed the struggle testified at the trial. According to those witnesses, the struggle continued until the two ended up in a water-filled ditch. At this point, Burns gained possession of Trooper Young’s revolver. Passersby who had returned to assist the officer testified that Young, who was attempting to rise out of the water, warned them to stay away and said, “He’s got my gun.” Young told Burns, “You can go,” and, “You don’t have to do this.” According to testimony of these witnesses, Burns stood over Trooper Young, who had his hands *603 raised, held the gun in both hands, and fired one shot. According to the medical examiner, the shot struck the officer’s wedding ring and grazed his finger before entering his head through his upper lip, killing him. After telling Williams to leave with the vehicle, Burns fled the scene on foot. By the time a fellow trooper arrived to assist Young, he was lying in the water-filled ditch, dead. His shirt had been ripped exposing his bulletproof vest.
Burns was apprehended later the night of the murder. A subsequent search of the vehicle, found abandoned the next day, revealed over 300 grams of cocaine in bags found under the spare tire in the trunk. Burns’ fingerprints were recovered from one of these bags. Cocaine and documents with Burns’ name on them were also found in the bank bag, which had been left on the ground at the scene of the murder.
The jury found Burns guilty of first-degree murder and trafficking in cocaine, as charged, and recommended that he be sentenced to death in connection with the murder. Finding two aggravating factors,[2] one statutory mitigating factor,[3] and various nonstatutory mitigating circumstances,[4] which were considered “not significant,” the trial court imposed the death penalty and sentenced Burns to thirty years’ imprisonment in connection with the trafficking conviction.
James Duckett was sentenced to death by the State of Florida for the murder of 12 year old Teresa McAbee . According to court documents James Duckett would sexually assault and murder twelve year old Teresa McAbee on his patrol car, Duckett was a Mascotte Police Officer at the time of the crime. James Duckett would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
The key pieces of evidence that sent former Mascotte Police Officer James Duckett to death row for raping and killing a 12-year-old girl were four: His squad car’s tire tracks at the scene, her fingerprints on his cruiser, the word of a 16-year-old thief and finally, an FBI expert’s testimony about a single hair found in her pink panties.
Wait. Let’s make that three. Last month, the FBI quietly released a report attempting to explain why the FBI’s now-discredited microscopic hair analysis unit and Agent Michael Malone, lied in thousands of cases, possibly including Duckett’s.
Duckett remains on death row, even though the FBI admitted in 2015 that Malone and his crew went “beyond what the science would support” and that they had found errors in “most” analysis and testimony.
Tire tracks near Knight Lake where victim Teresa McAbee was found matched those from Duckett’s patrol car, and her palm print was on the hood of his car, fingers pointing outward as if she were sitting on the hood.
Duckett’s explanation was that he saw and talked with the child who had gone to a convenience store to get a pencil to do her homework. And Duckett says that he drove around Knight Lake looking for Teresa after her mother summoned police when the girl didn’t return home from her 10 p.m. trip to the store.
The thief, a pregnant teen, told deputies months later that on the night of the murder, she saw Duckett drive away with Teresa in his car. Later, she recanted her testimony.
All of that just muddies the waters. The single pubic hair found in Teresa’s panties was the sole piece of critical physical evidence. The FBI expert testified that it was “completely indistinguishable” from one of 30 samples taken from Duckett.
However, the Justice Department’s inspector general later nailed agent Michael Malone for lying on the witness stand and for submitting scientifically flawed reports in 18 high-profile cases, including O.J. Simpson’s, the Oklahoma City bombing and the case of John Hinckley, who shot President Ronald Reagan.
The Justice Department notified prosecutors in 263 Florida cases — Duckett’s included — that Malone had done shoddy work, misrepresented evidence and in some cases lied. Prosecutors could decide on their own whether to revisit convictions. Lake’s prosecutor decided not to.
Now, the FBI has released a 309-page report detailing why FBI analysts overstated the cases. It’s a little on the bizarre side.
The consulting company that did the work, ABS Group, explained it using this analogy in a preface to the report:
It was as if “…examiners were told to drive on a road where the only posted speed limit sign says, ‘Drive Carefully.’”
Then, 20 years later, they wrote, experts determined a safe speed and posted the appropriate signs and admonished earlier drivers for going faster.
At the heart of the controversy, they said, are the words “consistent with,” as in “these hairs are consistent with” those taken from the suspect, when the more accurate phrasing should be that the hairs “could have come” from the suspect.
Huh? What kind of apologist nonsense is this?
The report implies that superiors should have set limits for what the analysts could have testified to rather than the experts knowing their business well enough to write reports and testify truthfully.
The errors, the company reported, came from “most examiners, not just a few,” starting in 1971. Of course, the company didn’t find evidence of “malicious intent” by any FBI agents or analysts to convict someone who was innocent.
Every time someone complained, it was dealt with as an isolated event, not a systemic problem. The report stated that overconfidence and lack of leadership allowed the errors to go on for literally decades.
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