Spaziano case has court in quandary
Dublin Core
Title
Spaziano case has court in quandary
Subject
Spaziano, Joseph
Capital punishment
Description
There are major tensions over Joseph Spaziano's case because the key-witness in the 20 year old case reversed his testimony.
Creator
Kaplow, Larry
Source
The Palm Beach Post
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
300 dpi
1 JPG
Language
English
Coverage
Florida
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
[header]
State News
[Title]
Spaziano case has court in quandary
By Larry Kaplow
Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
[start of the first column]
Tallahassee-Tensions over the controversial death sentence of Outlaws gang member Joe Spaziano surfaced in heated arguments Thursday as the Florida Supreme Court wrestled with the apparent reversal of the key witness in the 20-year-old case.
The case has defied legal procedures, with its late-breaking recantation by witness Anthony Dilisio, and the subsequent investigation that Gov. Lawton Chiles is keeping secret but said prompted him to sign Spaziano's death warrant last month. Execution is scheduled for Sept. 21.
Spaziano was convicted of the 1973 Seminole County murder of 18-year-old Laura Lynn Harberts, whose badly decomposed body was found alongside another corpse near a trash dump.
His volunteer attorney asked the court to cancel the execution and give him enough money to hire an investigator to look into the new information. The court could rule anytime.
As an assistant attorney general agreed against a stay, Supreme Court justices testily asked about a videotape, somehow leaked to Spaziano's attorney and of Dilisio telling Chiles' investigators that police led him to give the hypnotically induced testimony about going with Soaziano to see the victim's corpse.
"Apparently there us an allegation out there, and a very strong one, that the prime witness against the defendant in this particular case has now related his testimony," Justice Gerald Kogan
[end of the first column]
[Start of the second column]
said. "What do we do as a court? Do we sot back and say, 'OK... that's tough Mr. Spaziano, we're going to electrocute you because of all these (procedural) thing you should have done before?'"
But they also had tough questions for Spaziano attorney Michael Mell about the "free form" of his defenses through the courts and why he hasn't obtained a sworn statement from Dilisio recanting his trial testimony.
Mello, a law professor in Vermont, said Dilisio refused to cooperate years ago and he wants to try to hire an investigator to give it another try.
By the original prosecutor's own admission, the case relied almost completely on the testimony of DiLisio, then a troubled teenage Outlaws groupie. But, when he couldn't remember an alleged trip to view the victim with a boastful Spaziano, police had him hypnotized and led him on at least some of the details.
Recent report in The Miami Herald quoted Dilisio as saying that he was coerced into the testimony. That prompted Chiles to delay an order for his execution in June. But Chiles sent investigators to talk to Dilisio and others.
Chiles aides said they found others in the Outlaws' circles who claimed to hear Dilisio talk about seeing the bodies before he had been hypnotized for the trail. Chiles won't release interviews, however, maintaining the Outlaws might retaliate against the witnesses.
Mello obtained a copy of the videotaped interview Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators held with Dilisio and turned it over the supreme court. In its, DiLiso and turned it over to the Supreme Court. In it, Dilisio, said the first time he can recall doing to the site of the bodies was when police took him there.
[end of the second column]
[end of the article]
State News
[Title]
Spaziano case has court in quandary
By Larry Kaplow
Palm Beach Post Capital Bureau
[start of the first column]
Tallahassee-Tensions over the controversial death sentence of Outlaws gang member Joe Spaziano surfaced in heated arguments Thursday as the Florida Supreme Court wrestled with the apparent reversal of the key witness in the 20-year-old case.
The case has defied legal procedures, with its late-breaking recantation by witness Anthony Dilisio, and the subsequent investigation that Gov. Lawton Chiles is keeping secret but said prompted him to sign Spaziano's death warrant last month. Execution is scheduled for Sept. 21.
Spaziano was convicted of the 1973 Seminole County murder of 18-year-old Laura Lynn Harberts, whose badly decomposed body was found alongside another corpse near a trash dump.
His volunteer attorney asked the court to cancel the execution and give him enough money to hire an investigator to look into the new information. The court could rule anytime.
As an assistant attorney general agreed against a stay, Supreme Court justices testily asked about a videotape, somehow leaked to Spaziano's attorney and of Dilisio telling Chiles' investigators that police led him to give the hypnotically induced testimony about going with Soaziano to see the victim's corpse.
"Apparently there us an allegation out there, and a very strong one, that the prime witness against the defendant in this particular case has now related his testimony," Justice Gerald Kogan
[end of the first column]
[Start of the second column]
said. "What do we do as a court? Do we sot back and say, 'OK... that's tough Mr. Spaziano, we're going to electrocute you because of all these (procedural) thing you should have done before?'"
But they also had tough questions for Spaziano attorney Michael Mell about the "free form" of his defenses through the courts and why he hasn't obtained a sworn statement from Dilisio recanting his trial testimony.
Mello, a law professor in Vermont, said Dilisio refused to cooperate years ago and he wants to try to hire an investigator to give it another try.
By the original prosecutor's own admission, the case relied almost completely on the testimony of DiLisio, then a troubled teenage Outlaws groupie. But, when he couldn't remember an alleged trip to view the victim with a boastful Spaziano, police had him hypnotized and led him on at least some of the details.
Recent report in The Miami Herald quoted Dilisio as saying that he was coerced into the testimony. That prompted Chiles to delay an order for his execution in June. But Chiles sent investigators to talk to Dilisio and others.
Chiles aides said they found others in the Outlaws' circles who claimed to hear Dilisio talk about seeing the bodies before he had been hypnotized for the trail. Chiles won't release interviews, however, maintaining the Outlaws might retaliate against the witnesses.
Mello obtained a copy of the videotaped interview Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators held with Dilisio and turned it over the supreme court. In its, DiLiso and turned it over to the Supreme Court. In it, Dilisio, said the first time he can recall doing to the site of the bodies was when police took him there.
[end of the second column]
[end of the article]
Contributor of the Digital Item
Williams, Megan
Files
Citation
Kaplow, Larry, “Spaziano case has court in quandary,” HIST299, accessed July 7, 2024, http://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/207.