Murder Case Demonstrates Sabotage of Justice

Murder Case Demonstrates Sabotage of Justice

Criminal courts--United States

Spaziano, Joe

Equality before the law--United States

With renewed interest in giving convicted murderer Joe Spaziano a new trial. Mello expresses the lack of legitimacy on this movement and specifically addresses the witness who claimed that he lied on the trial 20 years after the case. Mello closes his writing by impugning the idea of setting Spaziano free and how people in protest of death row may potentially deny justice to Spaziano's victims.

Mello, Michael

Mello, Micheal. "Murder Case Demonstrates Sabotage of Justice, Public Contempt Justified in Spaziano Delay." The Tribune, January 24, 1996, A7.

HIST 298, University of Mary Washington

1999-01-24

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Murder case demonstrates sabotage of justice / Public contempt justified in Spaziano delay
The criminal justice system is broken. It was not broken by cops or criminals, by crime victims or taxpayers. It was broken by judges, lawyers, legislators and ideologues who scorn the democratic process.
The case of Joseph “Crazy Joe” Spaziano, currently of Florida’s death row, is a case in point.
How long does it take to bring justice to a vicious murderer? In Spaziano’s case, the answer is 20 years and, as of this writing, still counting. The answer, if a judge is foolish enough to grant this psychopath a new trial, may be never.
Spaziano, a motorcycle gang member, was convicted in 1976 of the murder of an 18-year-old girl. He was sentenced to death. In 1996, lawyers, some of whom are ideologically opposed to the death penalty, and the Miami Herald newspaper are crowing that poor Spaziano is an innocent man.
Spaziano has also been convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl and of gouging out her eyes with his knife. He is a suspect in three other murders. His own family has said publicly they are terrified that he will be released and will then kill them, as he has threatened to do.
In other words, Joe Spaziano is not the kind of man whom any rational person would assume to be innocent, no matter what technical problems there were in his trial.
The sole grounds for the passionate belief in Spaziano’s innocence is that a witness who testified that Spaziano showed him two bodies where the murder victim’s body was found has, 20 years later, suddenly claimed that he lied at the trial.
When this occurred, Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles ordered the state police to conduct an investigation. They did so and found ample evidence that the witness is lying now but told the truth at the trial.
There is no corroboration of the witness’s claim that he lied at the trial and is now telling the truth. Even after 20 years to think about it, Spaziano cannot supply an alibi. The witness is now unable to get his new story straight. But there is corroboration of his original testimony.
Spaziano’s brother and one of his former Outlaw gang members have both testified that Spaziano volunteered to them that he had killed two women in Florida and was worried about “a kid” who knew about the murder. “The kid” of course is the witness who now claims 20 years later that he made up the whole story and never saw any bodies.
When this witness’s sister asked her brother why he ha changed his story after so long, she testified that he replied, “I’m tired of being harassed by Spaziano’s people, lawyers and the media.”
The logical inference to be made from that testimony is that while lawyers have played games in the courts, fighting off one execution date after another, somebody has been trying to persuade a man to change his testimony.
I hope that the trial judge will have the courage to base his decision on the testimony and not on the hysteria of the Herald or the wild rhetoric of Spaziano’s lawyers.
You can be sure if Spaziano ever returns to society, he will kill again. When he does, those who helped him defeat justice, will also have blood on their hands.
But either way, this sorry spectacle of justice delayed is why an increasing number of Americans looks upon the criminal justice system with contempt and disdain. It also shows how ideology attempts to subvert democracy.
Any judge who opposes the death penalty should resign or at least recuse himself from all capital cases. For a judge to thwart justice simply because he disagrees with a democratically arrived at decision is disgraceful.
And others who oppose the death penalty should take their debate to the legislature – and not try to sabotage justice. What a foul system it is that ignores the innocent dead and squanders millions on the living killers.
Charley Reese is an Orlando Sentinel columnist.
Editor’s note: On Monday, a judge granted a new trial for Spaziano.
[image – photo of Charley Reese]
[image caption – Charley Reese]

Newspaper

Ramirez-Portillo, Jessica

Dickinson, Terra