Judge Orders Retrial of Condemned Man

Judge Orders Retrial of Condemned Man

Could Joseph Spaziano leave Death Row alive or will he end his twenty year stint with a walk to Florida's electric chair?

MARQUARD, BRYAN K

Valley News

HIST 298, University of Mary Washington

1996-01-24

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[title] Judge Orders Retrial of Condemned Man [author] By BRYAN K. MARQUARD: Valley News Staff Writer

[subtext] The decision could mean the Joseph Spaziano will leave Death Row alive, rather than end his more than 20-year stint with a walk to Florida’s electric chair.

[image—Joe Spaziano] [image caption] Joe Spaziano listens as his attorneys argue for a new trial in his 1976 murder case during the first day of a hearing in Sanford, Fla., on Jan. 8. This week, a judge ordered a new trial for the former Outlaws gang member after ruling a key witness lied to the 1976 trial jury.

A Florida judge has issued a stern opinion ordering a new murder trial for a death row inmate whose longtime attorney and friend teachers at Vermont Law School.

The decision could mean that Joseph Spaziano will leave Death Row alive, rather than end his more than 20-year stint with a walk to Old Sparky—the nickname for Florida’s electric chair.

Spaziano’s case was Michael Mello’s first assignment when he joined the Florida Public Defender’s office in the early 1980s. He continued to work on his client’s Death Row appeals after joining the law school faculty—even when a showdown with the Florida Supreme Court last fall resulted in the justices removing his from the case.

“I feel great,” Mello said yesterday in an assessment that was echoed by one of the three lawyers who argues the condemned man’s case during an evidentiary hearing in Sanford, Fla., earlier this month.

“It’s great news,” said Elyse Runzow, one of 11 students in Mello’s capital punishment seminar at Vermont Law School last fall that, as a class project, worked on two petitions that Mello filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court unanimously reject those petitions earlier this month.

The Florida circuit court judge issued the ruling Monday, a day before the 20th anniversary of the murder conviction that sent Spaziano to Death Row, where he has survived five death warrants signed during the administrations of three Florida governors.

The ruling that vacated the murder conviction came after a hearing that was prompted in part by a Miami Herald interview last June with Anthony DiLisio, the key witness in the case. DiLisio told the Herald—and testified in the hearing this month—that he lied more than 20 years ago when he said Spaziano had taken him to a dump in a rural area to show him the mutilated bodies of two women he had murdered. In 1976, DiLisio was a troubled teenager in a juvenile facility, and he recalled the encounter only after two sessions of hypnosis.

“In the United States of America every person, no matter how unsavory, is entitled to due process of law and a fair trial. The defendant received neither,” Judge O.H. Eaton Jr. wrote in an eight-page ruling. “The validity of the verdict in this case rests upon the testimony of an admitted perjurer who had every reason to fabricate a story which he hoped would be believed.”

Spaziano, who is on Death Row at the Union Correctional Institution in Union County, Fla., told the Herald Monday, “I’ve been trying to tell people all this time that the kid lied. I’m so happy people finally believe me.” Spaziano, who was known in the 1970s by his nickname, Crazy Joe, was a member of the Outlaws motorcycle gang when he was convicted of murdering Laura Harberts, a 18-year-old hospital clerk.

The judge also wrote that DiLisio’s recantation “would probably produce a different result on retrial.”

Tom Hastings, an assistant state attorney [end of page one]

[beginning of page two] who was the lead prosecutor during the hearing, did not return calls seeking a comment. But he told the Herald Monday that it’s likely the state will appeal the decision.

Gregg Thomas, one of the three lawyers representing Spaziano in the hearing this month, said in an interview yesterday that he believes the judge’s decision “is almost totally unassailable. . . . I think it would make an appeal very difficult.”

He also predicted that the state would not attempt to retry Spaziano on the murder charge.

Regardless of what the state decides to do, Spaziano will remain in jail for now. A few months before being convicted of murder in 1976, he was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal rape and assault of a 16-year-old girl. Spaziano has said he did not commit that crime either, and Mello is pushing for another court battle in an attempt to win freedom for his client, who was notified of the stay of execution on his fifth death warrant last September on his 50th birthday.

But those battles are for another time. Yesterday, those involved with Spaziano’s defense were in a congratulatory mood. Two of the three attorneys who represented him in the hearing have praised the actions of Mello, who, in a dangerous game of brinkmanship, defied a Florida Supreme Court order to attend a hearing last fall. The move earned him the enmity of the court, but bought Spaziano the few extra months necessary for a legal team to get things in order for this month’s hearing.

“But for your courage and fortitude, which were evidenced in your 1995 actions on behalf of Mr. Spaziano, there is no question that he would be dead today,” James Russ, one of Spaziano’s attorneys, wrote in a letter to Mello dated last Friday. “I write to thank you for the courageous efforts you made on his behalf, in the face of criticism by both the Florida Supreme Court and the legal profession.”

“Michael Mello is responsible for Joe Spaziano being alive,” Thomas said in the telephone interview yesterday. “I’ve never been prouder of a lawyer in my life.”

“If you’re measuring our contributions next to Michael’s contributions, ours pales in comparison,” he said.

Thomas said several lawyers from his firm—Holland and Knight, the largest firm in Florida—worked through what would have been their Christmas vacation to prepare for Spaziano’s hearing. “Our Christmas present came yesterday,” he said with a chuckle.

Among those who were elated over the ruling was Rose Spaziano, the defendant’s mother, who said she expected the judge would order a retrial. “I was hoping for a complete dismissal, but a retrial’s OK,” she said. “I’m hoping that things will go Joe’s way for a change.” She had not heard from her son yesterday, but said she was expecting a call, and added that he looked “real good” during the hearing. “He smiled at me,” she said. “He’s in good spirits.”

Marynoel Spaziano was not quite 5 years old when her father was sent to Death Row. Yesterday, while shushing one of her father’s three grandchildren, she said she was happy about the judge’s ruling. Joseph Spaziano has seen two of his grandchildren once, she said. He was kept in handcuffs during the in-person meeting, which was allowed as he neared the execution date for one of his five death warrants.

Also cheered by the news was longtime death penalty opponent Mike Farrell, the actors whose credits include he TV show M*A*S*H. He was active in a petition drive calling for a retrial for Spaziano. He said yesterday that Spaziano’s case “added elements” to the anti-death penalty crusade that would “make it abundantly clear to people that it doesn’t work, if you pay attention to the specifics.”

He said he plans to spread the word about the case and “use this experience to help inform people about the ugly realities” of the death penalty. “I have profited enormously from this experience, just from the perspective of a human being,” he said of his work in cases such as Spaziano’s. “When we succeed in ending this, we will be a better nation for it.”

Mello said the biggest hero in the Spaziano case may be the judge who issued the ruling, because the seat on the bench is an elected position.

“From a political standpoint, from a personal standpoint, the only fair characterization of this decision . . . is extraordinarily courageous,” he said. “His local newspaper (the Orlando Sentinel) has been frothing at the mouth over this. All of the local TV stations have frothing over this.”

The decision was also courageous “in terms of judicial politics,” Mello said, given that Spaziano’s attempts to secure a retrial or dismissal have failed when his case argued before the Florida Supreme Court, U.S. District Court, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U. S. Supreme Court. “This took guts,” Mello said. “You never know where the heroes are going to come from.” [end of page two]

Williams, Megan