Spaziano awaits decision
Dublin Core
Title
Spaziano awaits decision
Subject
Capital punishment
Spaziano, Joseph
Description
This newspaper article discusses Joe Spaziano's last minute appeal to the courts to stay his execution, scheduled for September 21, 1995, thirteen days after the article's publishing.
Creator
The Associated Press
Source
The Associated Press. "Spaziano Awaits Decision." The Gainesville Sun, September 8, 1995.
Publisher
HIST 298, University of Mary Washington
Date
1995-09-08
Rights
The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source.
Format
1 JPG
300 DPI
Language
English
Coverage
Tallahassee, FL
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
[header]
Spaziano awaits decision
[start of the first column}
TALLAHASSEE -- An attorney for Joseph "Crazy Joe" Spaziano asked the state Supreme Court for a chance to prove his client is innocent in the murder sending him to the electric chair in two weeks.
A lawyer for the state, however, urged the justices not to stay Spaziano's execution on "mere speculation."
After bearing oral arguments Thursday, Florida's high court will make a decision at its own discretion; Spaziano, 49, is scheduled to be executed Sept. 21 for the murder of a n Orlando woman 22 years ago.
During the hourlong hearing, justices and lawyers had exchanges about testimony at a trial held nearly 20 years ago, about judicial procedure, about the role of the state's high court in reviewing capital cases.
"The proceeding before us has taken a rather free form," Justice Harry Lee Anstead told Spaziano attorney Michael Mello. "This is the way you have approached this case before the court, and it's obviously causing us considerable difficulty."
Mello, a Vermont law professor, has filed hundreds of pages of pleadings before Florida's high court, but he began his presentation
[end of the first column]
[start of the second column]
[quote] "If I had an opportunity to prove Mr. Spaziano's innocence before a jury, he would be acquitted." -Attorney Michael Mello
[text resumes]
by telling justices that all the issues were secondary because his client did not kill Laura Lynn Harberts.
The 18-year-old hospital clerk's body was found in an Altamonte Springs dump in August 1973.
"I believe that if I had an opportunity to prove Mr. Spaziano's innocence before a jury, he would be acquitted," Mello said. "All I'm asking for . . . is a stay of execution and the provision of resources."
Anthony Dilisio, a key prosecution witness in Spaziano's trial, recanted his testimony earlier this year, prompting Gov. Lawton Chiles
[end of the second column]
[start of the third column]
to suspend Spaziano's fourth death warrant.
However, after an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into the recent comments by Dilisio, Chiles said he had no doubts about the case and signed a fifth death warrant last month.
Mello questioned the reliability of the FDLE investigation, which he governor has refused to release, as "supersecret information that supposedly reliable witnesses supposedly told FDLE that supposedly correctly-reported to the governor."
But Anstead questioned the strength of Mello's appeal before Florida's high court.
"I can't imagine new evidence more substantial than a disavowal of the critical testimony by the witness," Mello answered.
If Mello had filed the proper motion in trial court, he would have been required to meet two tests, Anstead said. The first test is whether the recanted testimony was substantial enough to undercut Spaziano's conviction; the second is whether the issue should have been raised earlier.
Anstead asked Mello if he could have jumped through "those two ordinary hoops."
Justice Ben Overton then interrupted the attorney, asking why he had not presented an affidavit from Dilisio recanting his testimony.
[[shot of Spaziano speaking through glass in prison visiting area by Dede Smith from The Gainesville Sun]]
Joseph Spaziano talks Wednesday at Florida State Prison about his execution scheduled for Sept. 21.
[end of the article]
Spaziano awaits decision
[start of the first column}
TALLAHASSEE -- An attorney for Joseph "Crazy Joe" Spaziano asked the state Supreme Court for a chance to prove his client is innocent in the murder sending him to the electric chair in two weeks.
A lawyer for the state, however, urged the justices not to stay Spaziano's execution on "mere speculation."
After bearing oral arguments Thursday, Florida's high court will make a decision at its own discretion; Spaziano, 49, is scheduled to be executed Sept. 21 for the murder of a n Orlando woman 22 years ago.
During the hourlong hearing, justices and lawyers had exchanges about testimony at a trial held nearly 20 years ago, about judicial procedure, about the role of the state's high court in reviewing capital cases.
"The proceeding before us has taken a rather free form," Justice Harry Lee Anstead told Spaziano attorney Michael Mello. "This is the way you have approached this case before the court, and it's obviously causing us considerable difficulty."
Mello, a Vermont law professor, has filed hundreds of pages of pleadings before Florida's high court, but he began his presentation
[end of the first column]
[start of the second column]
[quote] "If I had an opportunity to prove Mr. Spaziano's innocence before a jury, he would be acquitted." -Attorney Michael Mello
[text resumes]
by telling justices that all the issues were secondary because his client did not kill Laura Lynn Harberts.
The 18-year-old hospital clerk's body was found in an Altamonte Springs dump in August 1973.
"I believe that if I had an opportunity to prove Mr. Spaziano's innocence before a jury, he would be acquitted," Mello said. "All I'm asking for . . . is a stay of execution and the provision of resources."
Anthony Dilisio, a key prosecution witness in Spaziano's trial, recanted his testimony earlier this year, prompting Gov. Lawton Chiles
[end of the second column]
[start of the third column]
to suspend Spaziano's fourth death warrant.
However, after an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into the recent comments by Dilisio, Chiles said he had no doubts about the case and signed a fifth death warrant last month.
Mello questioned the reliability of the FDLE investigation, which he governor has refused to release, as "supersecret information that supposedly reliable witnesses supposedly told FDLE that supposedly correctly-reported to the governor."
But Anstead questioned the strength of Mello's appeal before Florida's high court.
"I can't imagine new evidence more substantial than a disavowal of the critical testimony by the witness," Mello answered.
If Mello had filed the proper motion in trial court, he would have been required to meet two tests, Anstead said. The first test is whether the recanted testimony was substantial enough to undercut Spaziano's conviction; the second is whether the issue should have been raised earlier.
Anstead asked Mello if he could have jumped through "those two ordinary hoops."
Justice Ben Overton then interrupted the attorney, asking why he had not presented an affidavit from Dilisio recanting his testimony.
[[shot of Spaziano speaking through glass in prison visiting area by Dede Smith from The Gainesville Sun]]
Joseph Spaziano talks Wednesday at Florida State Prison about his execution scheduled for Sept. 21.
[end of the article]
Original Format
Newspaper
Vol. No./Issue No.
vol. 68, issue 5
Contributor of the Digital Item
McGowan, Khayla
Student Editor of the Digital Item
Williams, Megan
Files
Citation
The Associated Press, “Spaziano awaits decision,” HIST299, accessed July 7, 2024, http://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/206.