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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:38:43 GMT -5
Remember you said that one innocent person on death row would be too much for you?
Well; here is one that you cannot deny. So what do you say to this? Unlike some released where u can claim the system worked since he was freed (in spite of the fact that its never because of but IN SPITE OF the system). This man was not freed - he screamed his innocence for years; then he died of cancer on death row; considered a hated murderer. Then the FBI clears him with DNA, oops; sorry you're dead. (hey Mike - any idea what the medical care for serious illness is like in prison? I sure know!)
Mike - I expect you to be an abolitionist now; if you had meant what you said. But instead you'll think of some way not to let this touch your opinion; but its just inexcusable; and I can tell you he is far; far from the only one.
DNA clears inmate too late
The FBI clears the death-row inmate of rape and murder 10 1/2 months after cancer killed him.
By SYDNEY FREEDBERG
© St. Petersburg Times, published December 15, 2000
Death-row inmate Frank Lee Smith lay strapped to a prison hospital bed, wasting away from cancer, moaning "Help me!"
Smith, who had spent 14 years on death row for a murder he said he did not commit, kept mumbling about his appeal, wondering whether prosecutors would grant his longstanding request for DNA testing to prove his innocence.
They did, but it came too late for him.
On Thursday, 10 1/2 months after cancer killed him at North Florida Reception Center, a prosecutor said the FBI had cleared Smith of the 1985 rape and murder of 8-year-old Shandra Whitehead.
It is thought to be the first case in which posthumous DNA testing proved a man's innocence.
"They told me, "The DNA excludes him from being there,' " said Broward Assistant State Attorney Carolyn McCann. "He didn't do it," she quoted the FBI.
Smith's lawyers are outraged.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush said Thursday that the governor wants to offer DNA testing to other condemned inmates.
"If the FBI data is accurate, this man should not have been on death row," said spokeswoman Katie Baur. "The governor's office has been working for several months to provide DNA testing for all death row inmates in which a DNA test could prove their innocence."
On Thursday, Smith's lawyers accused prosecutors of stubbornly ignoring evidence of his innocence for years and then blocking DNA testing while Smith was alive.
"We knew he was innocent in December of 1989," said Martin McClain, Smith's former lawyer. "We told the courts, and we told them who was the real killer, but no one cared, and they kept Frank Lee Smith on death row for another 10 years until he died."
In the Smith case, the DNA evidence is "just a snapshot of how unreliable the system is," McClain said. "If you were grading the system, this case shows it flunked."
Smith, convicted of two earlier homicides, had been on parole when police accused him of sneaking into Shandra's home and raping and fatally beating her in her bed. No physical evidence linked him to the crime, but a jury convicted him in 1986 based largely on an eyewitness. A judge sent him to death row.
Gov. Bob Martinez signed a death warrant on Oct. 16, 1989, but less than a month before Smith's scheduled execution, the eyewitness, Chiquita Lowe, recanted. She testified she wrongly identified Smith after police pressured her, telling her Smith was dangerous.
A week before he was to die, the Florida Supreme Court stayed the execution.
But then a judge in Broward turned down his request for a new trial after prosecutors depicted Lowe as a liar.
In fact, Lowe never wavered from her testimony that she saw someone else lurking outside the victim's house that night: Eddie Lee Mosely, an insane killer who was the prime suspect in a number of other rapes and killings in the same neighborhood.
In 1998, Smith's attorneys began pressing for DNA testing. But the Broward State Attorney's Office said that under longstanding court rules it was too late for Smith to get his conviction overturned -- even if the semen found in the victim belonged to someone else.
At one hearing, prosecutor McCann accused Smith's lawyers of "playing games" to delay justice.
"This is not a game," countered Smith's attorney, Bret B. Strand. "If Smith's DNA does not match the evidence, he is innocent. The interests of justice in preventing the execution of an innocent man outweigh the state's interest in a procedural rule."
Former O.J. Simpson lawyer Barry Scheck, who served on Smith's legal team, argued that DNA testing might not only vindicate Smith but also solve a series of homicides and rapes in the area.
McCann now insists she wasn't opposed to DNA testing, but she did object to a defense team condition to keep the results secret.
Strand said that after Smith, 52, came down with cancer, prison officials were slow to respond. "He lost 30 or 40 pounds" the lawyer said, adding that Smith was left writhing in pain in solitary confinement at Florida State Prison.
Eventually, he was transferred to the prison hospital, where investigator Jeff Walsh visited a week before Smith died. "He was moaning, begging for water," Walsh said in an interview shortly after Smith's death on Jan. 30. "He was lying in his own excrement."
He asked Walsh how his appeal for the DNA testing was going.
After his death, attorney Hilliard Moldof sought an order to keep the state from destroying the DNA evidence so that it could be compared to the dead man's DNA. Prosecutors originally opposed the testing, but an agreement was finally worked out in July.
Prosecutor McCann said she still is waiting for the FBI's written report. When it arrives, she said she probably will move to vacate Frank Lee Smith's conviction.
Shandra's mother has been informed, and Mosely is now a suspect in the killing, McCann said. She added she is very upset about Smith's conviction.
"No prosecutor wants this to happen," McCann said. "Unfortunately, we're in an imperfect system where the guilty go free, and sometimes innocent people are convicted."
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:39:12 GMT -5
DNA clears man in murder, 11 months after he died on death row TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- (AP) -- Nearly 11 months after a death row inmate died of cancer, DNA has cleared him of the 1985 murder of an 8-year-old girl raped and fatally beaten in her bed. The FBI has not written its final report on Frank Lee Smith, but Assistant State Attorney Carolyn McCann said she called the bureau to ask about the results earlier this week. ``They told me `He has been excluded, he didn't do it,''' McCann said Thursday. ``Nobody wants to feel like the wrong person was in jail,'' she said. ``It's a bad feeling.'' The family of Shandra Whitehead, who died nine days after she was attacked in Fort Lauderdale on April 14, 1985, has been told and the investigation has been reopened, McCann said. ``We have suspects that the defense has been presenting all along,'' she said. Geoffrey Smith, a Tallahassee attorney representing Frank Lee Smith, didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment Thursday. Smith, 52, died of cancer Jan. 30 at the North Florida Reception Center hospital. He had been sent to death row 14 years earlier for Whitehead's murder. Former Gov. Bob Martinez signed a death warrant for Smith in 1989 and he was scheduled for execution in January 1990 but he won a stay. Smith had two other killings on his record. He spent 11 months in a juvenile facility after fatally stabbing a 14-year-old boy following a Fort Lauderdale high school football game in 1960. Smith was 13 then. Five years later, he and another teen-ager shot a man to death during a robbery. Smith pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison -- but at the time that meant a maximum of 15 years. He was paroled in 1981. In 1985, someone broke into Shandra Whitehead's bedroom as she slept and raped, beat and strangled her. Her mother was returning home from work when she saw a man at the living room window. She testified it was Smith. His insanity defense failed and he was condemned after a unanimous jury recommendation for death. The state Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentence after the first direct appeal but in January 1998 ordered a trial judge to hold an evidentiary hearing based on Smith's claim of new evidence. It didn't have anything to do with DNA. At Smith's trial, three witnesses testified against him, including the mother of the little girl and a woman who said she saw him in front of the victim's house just before the murder. But Chiquita Lowe later changed her story, saying the man she saw was someone else. At the appeal hearing in the fall of 1998, the trial judge wasn't persuaded, McCann said Thursday. Meanwhile, lawyers on both sides of the case were fighting over DNA. McCann said Smith's lawyers wanted to have their client's DNA tested but wanted to keep the results to themselves. She said she refused to agree to that condition and tried to get them to agree to a DNA test where the results would be available to both sides. ``My whole point of doing DNA testing was that I thought he was guilty,'' McCann said. A short time after Smith died, an investigator in McCann's office obtained a vial of his blood. A few months later, in mid-July, an agreement was hammered out. Then it took a few weeks to get the paperwork signed and to collect the evidence -- semen left in the little girl's vagina -- from the Broward County Sheriff's office. ``It was just a matter that they got behind and Frank Lee Smith was dead,'' McCann said. The samples were sent to the FBI a month ago. McCann learned of the results Monday. At least nine former death row inmates across the country have been exonerated because of DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based group that has provided legal assistance to dozens of wrongly convicted inmates. Earlier this year, Illinois Gov. George Ryan, a Republican, declared a moratorium on the death penalty to examine improvements because 13 death row inmates have had their convictions overturned since 1977.
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:40:37 GMT -5
PBS : Requiem for Frank Lee Smith www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/smith/How an innocent man ended up on death row -- and was allowed to die there. Where was the evidence? The disputed "confession" Chiquita Lowe's recantation Clues investigators neglected The disputed photo line-ups The state's refusal to test DNA The many lost judicial appeals Florida's death sentencing errors lead the U.S. 1. Where was the Evidence? Frank Lee Smith was convicted and sentenced to death for Shandra Whitehead's murder based on the testimony of one person, Chiquita Lowe. Nineteen years old at the time, Lowe stated that about half an hour before the murder, she saw someone in the neighborhood. Later, after being shown a photo line-up, she identified Frank Lee Smith as that person. There were no eyewitnesses to the Whitehead murder, no forensic evidence, no blood. There was only Chiquita Lowe's testimony identifying Frank Lee Smith as the man she saw in the neighborhood around the time of the murder. 2. The Disputed "Confession" The key homicide investigators in the Smith case testified at the trial that in their interrogation of Smith they lied and told him that there was a witness who could identify him as the perpetrator. It was an interrogation tactic often used by police and, in this case, they said it worked, and Smith unintentionally incriminated himself. There were no tapes or transcripts of the interrogation, and during sentencing Frank Lee Smith denied he ever made the statement that the police attributed to him. However, his statement was presented to the jury as an involuntary confession. 3. Chiquita Lowe's Recantation Four years after Frank Lee Smith's conviction, Chiquita Lowe recanted her testimony. After being shown a picture of Eddie Lee Mosley by investigator Jeff Walsh, Lowe said Frank Lee Smith was not the person she saw that night, it was Mosley. Lowe said that she had been pressured by the original prosecutor to testify that it was Frank Lee Smith. The prosecutor denies this. 4. The Clues Investigators Neglected The police failed to look at other suspects, including, in particular, a man in the neighborhood who had been a suspect for years in numerous rape/murders: Eddie Lee Mosley. The composite sketch of the perpetrator -- drawn from Chiquita Lowe's description and that of another person who had seen a man in the area the night of the murder -- matched Eddie Lee Mosley far more than Frank Lee Smith. Mosley had been connected to crimes in the bordering Ft. Lauderdale/Broward County jurisdictions for years; Ft. Lauderdale police long suspected his involvement in the murders. Yet the Broward Sheriff's Office never investigated Mosley as a possible suspect -- not even after Chiquita Lowe recanted her testimony and said it was Mosley she saw. (Watch a video excerpt from "Requiem for Frank Lee Smith" on the failure of the police to investigate Mosley.) 5. The Disputed Photo Line-ups After Frank Lee Smith's conviction, the lead investigator in the case, Det. Richard Scheff of the Broward Sheriff's Office, twice testified that he had shown Chiquita Lowe a third photo line-up, back at the time of the murder, which included a picture of Eddie Lee Mosley. (Mosley was later implicated by DNA tests as Shandra Whitehead's murderer.) Scheff contended that Chiquita Lowe was shown a photo of Mosley prior to the trial, and yet in court she still testified that Frank Lee Smith was the man she saw the night of the murder. The implication was that Lowe's post-trial identification of Mosley had to be mistaken. But Det. Scheff's testimony about the third line-up was something new. He had consistently said in his depositions and trial testimony that he showed the witnesses only two line-ups, one with Frank Lee Smith in it and one without him. Chiquita Lowe and her defense attorney say they were never shown the third photo line-up. 6. Frank Lee Smith's Many Lost Judicial Appeals For more than a decade, Florida's courts held numerous hearings on the Frank Lee Smith case, reaching the state Supreme Court on several occasions. Here's a summary of the legal battles and judicial appeals. 7. The State's Refusal to Test DNA The defense filed many motions requesting DNA testing for Frank Lee Smith. The first such request came in 1998, after advanced DNA testing was permitted in the courts. Some DNA material still existed in the case of Shandra Whitehead. At first the state agreed to the tests, thinking that with the upcoming evidentiary hearing on Chiquita Lowe's recantation, they needed something to bolster their case against Smith as much as possible. However, prosecutors subsequently found Lowe's testimony at the hearing unimpressive and they decided to deny the DNA testing. Observers like law professor Jonathan Simon condemn the state's decision, saying that once prosecutors knew that they had not lost the death sentence in the hearing, they simply didn't want to take the chance of losing it because of the DNA. For the next year, motions were filed by the defense. There were objections from the state and more defense filings were made, but there was no ruling from the judge. It would take DNA tests implicating Eddie Lee Mosley in rape and murders throughout the area to force the state prosecutors to finally stop fighting DNA testing for Frank Lee Smith. But by the time they did so, he had already died of cancer on death row. 8. Florida's Flawed Death Sentences Lead the Country The careless investigation, wrongful conviction and death sentencing of Frank Lee Smith is not surprising when viewed in the context of Florida's shameful ranking in death penalty case errors. The second part of a recent massive study on the death penalty in America, called "A Broken System," concludes that five of the 15 counties in the U.S. that impose the death penalty most frequently are in Florida, ranking it among a handful of states that are at the highest risk for handing down wrongful convictions. More people have been removed from Florida's death row following findings that they were not guilty than in any other state. James Liebman, co-author of the study, calls it "Florida Roulette," and in this section of the report the authors cite Frank Lee Smith's case as an illustration of the flaws in that state's justice system (Note: the Smith case is at the very end of this section).
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:41:11 GMT -5
Frank Lee Smith suffered a lifetime of poverty, abandonment, neglect, abuse, alcoholism, mental illness, and, ultimately, incarceration. Moreover, there was not an adequate social safety net in place to catch Frank, sufficiently address all that was awry, and help to alter the direction of his life. Instead, he was left to fend for himself from birth.
Fourteen-year-old Ruby Lee Smith gave birth to Frank, the second of her three children, on July 20, 1947, while living in Valdosta, Georgia. Frank was instantly thrown into a world of poverty, turmoil, and confusion. His family was destitute, living as sharecroppers in a racially segregated south Georgia. Both of his parents were uneducated and barely able to provide for themselves, let alone a growing family.
Not long after Frank was born, his father became involved in criminal activity and was fatally shot by the local police. Ruby was devastated by the loss of her husband, and she was not equipped to single-handedly fulfill the responsibilities of being a teenaged parent. Ruby also had serious problems of her own, including alcoholism and emotional instability. Her lifestyle and emotional shortcomings left Frank without a stable home. His brother, Ruben Smith, recalled that while the family lived in Georgia, Frank suffered a profound head injury when he was about three years old. Ruby was holding Frank in her arm while she was in a bar. A fight broke out, and someone threw a bottle that split open Frank's head so badly that his brain tissue was exposed. This, and another serious head injury when Frank was a teenager, resulted in brain damage from which Frank would never recover.
When Frank was still a young boy, Ruby and her children moved to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Having no job skills and no reliable income, Ruby turned to the streets. She took up prostitution, and eventually was brutally raped and murdered. Tragically, it was not until Frank was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death that the magnitude of his mental illnesses was diagnosed.
Prior to her death, it was commonplace for Frank and his siblings to be left alone for extended periods of time. When she was at home, Ruby often had men over who were known to be violent criminals. As Frank was growing up, he never had what he needed the most: positive role models, guidance, affection, parental nurturing, and a stable family unit.
Frank spent most of his time in the streets of Fort Lauderdale. He soon fell prey to the ways of the older and more troubled boys in the poorest neighborhoods of the city. His truancy rate was alarming and his performance in school was near failing. When Frank was seven, his mother was found to be unfit, and he was placed in a foster home. His foster mother described Frank as a sad and mentally slow child. However, she did not have the training to care for a child with special needs. After being in foster care for three years, the juvenile court turned Frank over to the care of his elderly grandmother. Living conditions in her home were very poor, and there was little to no supervision. Frank was again left to fend for himself in the drug- and crime-ridden streets of Fort Lauderdale's poor neighborhoods.
At age 13, Frank was involved in a fight following a local football game. He was subsequently convicted of manslaughter and sent to the Florida School for Boys at Okeechobee, a facility that was known at the time for overcrowding, hog-tying of young boys, sexual abuse, and cruel treatment. While at the boys' home, Frank was subjected to beatings from staff and peers, sexual molestation, and drug use.
Upon his release, Frank returned to his grandmother's home and the dangerous streets of Fort Lauderdale. At age 15, he suffered another serious head injury -- this time it was a hard blow to the base of his skull with a blackjack. As Frank grew up, his brain damage and profound emotional shortcomings developed into serious mental illness. He was left untreated, and his condition worsened as he was periodically exposed to the violent and overcrowded juvenile detention system.
Frank continued to live aimlessly on the streets of Fort Lauderdale as a brain-damaged and mentally ill young man. His older brother, Ruben, and some others persuaded Frank to take part in a robbery scheme. The plans went all wrong and at the age of 18 Frank was convicted of murder and received a life sentence. Frank served 15 years in prison. Released in 1981, Frank promised himself that he would never again return to prison.
Frank fulfilled that promise as he lived a quiet life at his aunt's home without incident. When a horrific crime happened in Fort Lauderdale -- the Shandra Whitehead murder -- Frank was arrested, wrongly convicted, sentenced to death, and died of cancer while attempting to prove his innocence.
Tragically, it was not until Frank was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death that the magnitude of his mental illnesses was diagnosed. For the first time, a detailed evaluation was conducted, including psychological testing, interviews of family members, and a collection of records documenting Frank's life. In addition to being brain-damaged, it was discovered that Frank was, among other things, schizophrenic.
Frank Lee Smith never had a chance. His world was lacking all the fundamental building blocks of life that many of us take for granted. Frank's world was without equality and opportunity. He was an impoverished, brain-damaged, and mentally ill African-American man who was left undiagnosed and untreated -- despite exhibiting all of the classic symptoms -- while under the care of those officials managing the education, foster care and juvenile detention programs. Any of these institutions might have made a difference in Frank's life had they thoroughly evaluated him and his situation, rather than casting him aside.
Frank never knew stability; he lived in a home without parents or guardians capable of providing a loving, safe, and nurturing environment. Frank never knew security; he lived in a violent and dysfunctional world and all those who could have provided protection failed him. Frank was without happiness or freedom; he did not choose to be brain-damaged and mentally ill and he did not choose to spend the final 14 years of his life locked in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cage, tortured for a crime he did not commit.
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS
Equality, opportunity, stability, security, happiness, and freedom. Those are some of the words often thrown about to describe the desired conditions under which our children should be raised in this country. They should have loving and attentive parents or guardians, dynamic educators, access to proficient health care professionals who can identify and adequately treat illness, safe and clean neighborhoods, communities that provide opportunities for our children to explore and develop their artistic or athletic talents, and access to an inclusive economic system that will provide opportunities for our children as they become adults. Our national and community leaders tell us they can provide all of this for our families. And, just in case, we are told, there is a social network in place that tends to those families that stumble and become unable to care for their children. Many a politician has campaigned for office by promising to provide such a world. You have heard them say it: We will leave no child behind. If the truth be told, it does not happen that way for every child. And it did not happen that way for Frank Lee Smith.
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:41:56 GMT -5
Innocence Project :
For FRONTLINE's in-depth look at Frank Lee Smith's case, please go to: FRONTLINE - REQUIEM FOR FRANK LEE SMITH. For commentary from Barry Scheck and discussions about the case, please go to: Scheck Commentary - FRONTLINE.
After fourteen years on Florida's death row, Frank Lee Smith died of cancer on January 30, 2000, before he was exonerated of rape and murder. On April 15, 1985, the eight year old victim died from injuries sustained from an attack in her home by a burglar. Repetitive blows from a blunt object, later found to be a rock, in addition to attempted strangulation, contributed to the victim's death. An autopsy revealed that the victim had been raped and sodomized. Through shaky eyewitness descriptions from neighbors, Chiquita Lowe and Gerald Davis, as well as the victim's mother, the investigation came to be centered on a black male, about six feet tall, with muscular upper arms, shoulders and chest, a dark complexion, about thirty years old, and wearing an orange t-shirt and jeans. Lowe testified that, on her way home, she was flagged down by an unidentified black male with a full beard, scraggly hair, and a droopy eye. From a composite sketch the police put together with Davis and Lowe, Frank Lee Smith was arrested on April 29, 1985.
The prosecution relied on the identification of Smith by the victim's mother and Smith's criminal history. She identified him as the man she saw leaving her home through the living room window on the night of the murder. At trial, the defense's insanity plea failed and the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty. Although former Governor Bob Martinez signed a death warrant in 1989, Smith was able to win a stay of execution in January 1990. In 1998, the state Supreme Court ordered a trial judge to hold an evidentiary hearing based on Smith's claim of new evidence, which had nothing to do with DNA evidence. During this trial, three witnesses including the victim's mother, testified against Smith. But eyewitness Lowe changed her story, having been shown a picture of another suspect by a defense investigator, and the defense began requesting DNA testing. Only after Smith's death was a blood sample from Smith obtained by the state prosecutor's office, which was then tested against a semen sample taken from the victim's vagina. The samples were sent to the FBI laboratory, which reported that Frank Lee Smith was excluded as the depositor of the semen.
On December 15, 2000, eleven months after his death, and fourteen years after his 1986 conviction, Frank Lee Smith was exonerated based on exculpatory DNA testing results. These results not only cleared Smith of the crime, but identified the true perpetrator, Eddie Lee Mosley, a convicted rapist and murderer, currently living in the Tacachale State Center for mentally retarded defendants in Gainesville, Florida.
DNA testing implicating Mosley was first presented in the case of Jerry Frank Townsend, who spent twenty-two years in prison after confessing to two crimes he didn't commit.
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:42:54 GMT -5
"They told me, "The DNA excludes him from being there,' " said Broward Assistant State Attorney Carolyn McCann. "He didn't do it," she quoted the FBI.
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:45:13 GMT -5
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"He believed in the system" -- The Story of Frank Lee Smith
By Dr. Christina J. Johns Law, Power and Justice Syndicate February 12, 2001
That's what Jeff Walsh, the lead investigator on the Frank Lee Smith case said about Frank. "He believed in the system."
Frank Lee Smith was not what you would call a "model citizen." He had committed a crime in the past, been convicted, and served his time. In the mid-1980s he was out and ready to start a new life. But it wasn't to be.
The police came into his house, rounded up his entire family and threatened to put them all in jail if Frank Lee didn't confess to the brutal rape and murder of a local 8-year-old girl. One of the family members argued Frank Lee's innocence. One of the police officers responded that if Frank Lee hadn't committed this crime, he had committed others, and they were arresting Frank Lee.
Frank Lee went along, thinking that everything would be sorted out. It was just a mistake. 14 years later, Frank Lee Smith died of cancer on Florida's death row before the state had the chance to execute him. A few months later, DNA evidence was analyzed (over the protest of the state) and the conviction of Frank Lee Smith was vacated. Frank Lee, it seemed, was innocent. Little good it did him.
As Jeff Walsh pointed out in a recent interview, "What they did to Frank Lee Smith was worse than executing him." Walsh says that Smith was confined in a tiny cell, beaten, locked up naked in a holding cell from time to time, remained untreated for serious mental health problems and suffered other indignities. For guilty man, this would be barely tolerable. For an innocent one, it defies comprehension.
"Frank was the angriest man I've ever known." Jeff Walsh says. "He just couldn't comprehend what was happening to him." Frank Lee Smith wasn't, Walsh says, violent. "It wasn't like you thought he was going to lunge across a table and attack you." It was just that Frank Lee Smith was eaten up with the injustice of what was happening to him, and with the waste of what remained of his life.
This story is a tragic one, filled with details of prosecutorial misconduct and judicial conduct which caused an entire hearing to be thrown out. There is police intimidation of witnesses, police fabrication of evidence, and a police officer who perjured himself on the stand. But still, Frank Lee Smith spent 14 years on death row, died on death row, and "believed in the system."
This morning on the news, I have just heard another story which is very similar from another state. DNA technology is cutting the legs out from under the death penalty, and is sparking a real confrontation between defense attorneys who want the preservation and analysis of forensic evidence, and state officials who just want to dispose of it, or refuse to analyze it.
Even those of us who support the death penalty, cannot support the victimization of innocent people and DNA technology is increasingly giving the lie to assertions that the trial and appeals process ensures that only guilty people get put on death row.
When asked about the decision of the governor of Illinois to call a moratorium on the death penalty, the governor of Florida remarked that Florida didn't need one because Florida didn't make mistakes. Frank Lee Smith proves him wrong.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Sent by Larry Helm Spalding LarryACLU@aol.com ACLU Legislative Staff Counsel Tallahassee, Florida P
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:45:55 GMT -5
HISTORY OF FRANK LEE SMITH’S CASE
B. The 1989 death warrant.
The Governor of Florida signed a death warrant against Frank Lee Smith on October 18, 1989, scheduling the execution for January 16, 1990. Under Florida law prior to signing of the death warrant, Mr. Smith had until March 21, 1990, to file post-conviction relief. However, because of the Governor's death warrant, Florida law required that Mr. Smith's post-conviction motion be filed by November 17, 1989. Accordingly on that date, Mr. Smith filed a motion for a new trial in the circuit court.
On December 13, 1989, after a brief oral argument, Judge Robert Tyson summarily denied all relief without conducting an evidentiary hearing (PC-R. 326, 327). Mr. Smith had presented a Brady claim which was summarily denied. This claim was premised in part upon the fact that in 1987, two years after Mr. Smith's conviction, the state attorney was still investigating the case:
On Tuesday, February 24, 1987, this writer, as requested by A.S.A. William Dimitrouleas, compared the fingerprint standards of George Gregory Reddick to latent lifts reference B.S.O. Case #85-4-5789.
All workable latents were previously identified by this writer; however, this writer compared the remaining latents of no value to Reddick's fingerprint standards, and found negative results.
(Broward County Sheriff's Department report)(PC-R. 353). Nothing could be much more exculpatory and material -- and therefore disclosable -- than the prosecutor's own doubts regarding a defendant's guilt.
Mr. Smith also alleged a Brady violation because of the failure to disclose that the State had not, as law enforcement officers testified, eliminated the other suspects in the case but had simply abandoned the investigation of those suspects. There were numerous serious suspects, including Eddie Lee Mosley, who the police simply said "were eliminated as suspects" without providing any reasons for their elimination. Eddie Mosley, was, in fact, linked to over 30 sex crimes involving females from the ages of 7-70. The police eventually "narrowed" down the list of Mosley's victims to ten, but never revealed this information to the defense. The most striking thing to note in all of this is the amazing likeness of Mosley to the composite photo developed by the State. Frank Lee Smith had never been involved in any sex crimes and maintained his innocence of this charge. Eddie Mosley fit the description given far better than Frank Lee Smith. The State never disclosed how they eliminated Mr. Mosley as a suspect.
On December 15, 1989, Mr. Smith timely filed a motion for rehearing (PC-R. 331-33), and on December 18, 1989, a supplement to the motion for rehearing (PC-R. 334-53), which were denied on December 20, 1989 (PC-R. 354-55).
On the night of December 20, 1989, Jeff Walsh, the investigator for Mr. Smith, was finally able to locate Chiquita Lowe. Mr. Walsh showed her a picture of Eddie Lee Mosley, and she immediately identified him as the person who had run up to her car on the night of April 14, 1985. The next morning Chiquita Lowe provided the following affidavit:
1. My name is Chiquita Lowe and I live in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I am presently twenty-four years old.
2. In 1985, I testified during a murder trial. A little girl was raped and killed near my grandmother's house. I saw the man in the street right before the crime happened.
3. In 1985, I told the police detectives and the state attorney about how the man asked me for money. I told them that I only saw the man for an instant and that the only things I remembered were the droopy eye, scraggly hair, pot marks on his face, and the ring on his finger.
4. The police detectives and the attorney told me the man had a scar under his eye. I never saw a scar and they knew that. The state attorney told me that the man on trial had committed several crimes just like the one that happened near my grandmother's house. The state attorney also told me that the man on trial was dangerous, guilty of the crime, and needed to be taken off the streets.
5. While I was in the courtroom telling about what I saw, I knew that the man on trial was too thin to be the same man I saw on the street. The police detectives and the state attorney put so much pressure on me to testify against the man on trial.
6. The state attorney told me not to worry about my testimony because the man would be locked up and electrocuted the following May. He also pointed out the man's entire family to me. I was just feeling so pressured.
7. I have not forgotten about the trial and every few months I picture the man's face in my mind. I also remember how sorry I felt for the little girl.
8. On December 20, 1989, I was shown a photo and asked if this was the man who approached me and asked for fifty cents back in 1985. When I looked at the picture everything came back to me. The photo is attached to this affidavit. The man in the photo is without a doubt the man I saw. I know that he is not the same man who was on trial for the little girl's murder. I am so sorry that the wrong man is in prison and sentenced to death. I had doubts in the courtroom but I was under so much pressure. Also, the state attorney told me about how dangerous the man was and how he needed to be locked up forever.
9. I feel so bad that I did not tell the state attorney about my doubts. I did not know what to do. I felt a lot of pressure to say that the man on trial was the man I saw, even though I had doubts, and the man's hair did look the same.
10. I swear on my mother's grave that the man in the photo is the man I saw on the street the night when the little girl was raped and killed. I identified the wrong man in the courtroom.
(Amendment to PC-R. 4-7).
On December 22, 1989, Mr. Smith filed a motion for reconsideration of rehearing based on Chiquita Lowe’s affidavit. After it was denied, Mr. Smith appealed to the Florida Supreme Court on December 26, 1989 (PC-R. 356-57). After hearing oral argument on January 9, 1989, the Florida Supreme Court stayed the execution and subsequently issued an opinion ordering an evidentiary hearing on the Chiquita Lowe affidavit only. Relief was denied on all other issues.
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:46:38 GMT -5
Center on Wrongful Convictions The Florida Exonerated: Frank Lee Smith
Frank Lee Smith was sentenced to death for the murder of a girl in Broward County in 1987 and was posthumously exonerated in 2001
Frank Lee Smith was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in Broward County, Florida. He was convicted on the testimony of three eyewitnesses, who had caught only brief glimpses of the killer. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. Eventually, defense investigators discovered that a serial rapist-murderer lived in the same area. When shown a photograph of the new alternative suspect, one of the original eyewitnesses said he — not Smith — definitely was the person she had seen. The witness said she had been uncertain about Smith’s guilt from the beginning, but had succumbed to pressure from friends and police to identify him. When the alternative suspect became known, Smith’s attorneys sought DNA testing. However, their client died of pancreatic cancer in January 2000 before the testing was approved. Eleven months later, Smith became the first death row prisoner in history to be posthumously exonerated by DNA. The tests also confirmed the culpability of the alternative suspect in the case. Both Smith and the victim were African American.
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:47:32 GMT -5
In Memory Of Frank L. Smith By: Elsa Mason
Back in 1985 a little eight year-old girl, Shandra Whitehead, was raped and murdered. A horrible offense by any standard. The crime was so ugly that somebody (anybody> had to pay. It wasn't so important that it was the right person, just any person. It was Florida and so, like Pennsylvania, the mania was to extract a life for a life. Guilt was less important than vengeance. In fact, in extremist states such as Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida, vengeance is more important than rational thinking.
A man named Frank Lee Smith was arrested and charged with the crime. He claimed his innocence. But, it was a terrible crime so why trouble with techicalities like evidence, fair trail or rational deliberation? Mister Smith was found guiltyand sentenced to death.
Killing Mister Smith wouldn't bring back the murdered child. It would make every citizen an accessory to another killing; and yes, it would make the bloodthirsty revenge freaks feel like somehow they'd gotten "even."
Even if the death sentence was ever justified, there's simplyno way to tell for sure who's guilty. There's no way to tell how many innocent persons languish right this moment on death row waiting for you and me to kill them. In Pennsylvania at least two men are certainly not guilty fo th crimes for which we'll kill them. The only rational alternative is not to have a death row at all.
While waiting on deathrow for Jeb Bush's Florida to kill him, Mister Smith was diagnosed as having cancer. The Bush family are a degenerate gang of serial killers. (Even the President's wife is a killer.) It's likely a genetic defect, a kind of sickenss which costs other people their lives.
Since Mr. Smith was on death row and the state was going to kill him anyway, Govrnor Bush and the other fine citizens of Florida decided to just let him die of his disease.
The condemned Frank Smith suffered terribly. IT was a hideous death, but Bush and the "corrections" officials, figured, "what the hell, he deserves it." THe cancer finally took him in the beginning of 2000.
Then, after Mister Smith was dead, somebody decided that it would be fund to see if he was really the murderer, not that it mattered much so long as Florida got someone to kill. The FBI tested his DNA. It didn't match the DNA of the person who'd raped and murdreed little Shandra. Frank L. SMith was innocent.
Bush and the revenge freaks say "that don't mattter, none, somebody had to pay for that little girl's murder."
Who'll pay for Frank L. Smith?
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:48:42 GMT -5
Mike? Comments?
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Post by mikebook on May 26, 2005 7:55:07 GMT -5
I will throw my hat into the ring with this...
He was on Death row...Check
He had appeals...Check
He died of CANCER...Check
He was NOT EXECUTED...Check
Where is the problem? Other than medical care...
DNA did clear him, but cancer was the killer, not the state of florida.
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:55:41 GMT -5
You MUST see this thread; it has your name in it I am interested in your thoughts on this Mike; since when we met you articulated that innocents on DR would disturb you; yet you refuse to believe in such a possibility. Well; this is the kind of thing where ya gotta take a deep breath and realize you were wrong on this. Since you were wrong on something u believed so strongly; maybe you can realize within your self that a lot of other beliefs you have that lead u to support the DP are also fallacies....
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Post by CCADP on May 26, 2005 7:57:47 GMT -5
HE DIED after 14 years ON DEATH ROW. HE was NOT exonerated in his life. HE DIED A HATED MURDERER.
My GOD.
IS that ALL you can say.
OK; I am not ever bothering to debate with you again.
Believe whatever makes you happy in your world.
IF THAT was YOU - you wouldn't feel it was so JUST.
I could not be more disgusted.
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Post by mikebook on May 26, 2005 7:59:18 GMT -5
Just so you do not think I am some kind of monster...Medical care is a basic human need and is deserved by everybody...
Cancer has killed several members of my family. It is heart ripping to watch what it does to people.
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