Senate Bill 0068

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    Florida Senate - 1998        (NP)                        SB 68

    By Senator Holzendorf





    2-198-98

  1                      A bill to be entitled

  2         An act for the relief of Freddie Lee Pitts and

  3         Wilbert Lee; providing an appropriation to

  4         compensate them for being victims of a

  5         miscarriage of justice; providing an effective

  6         date.

  7

  8         WHEREAS, on August 1, 1963, Grover Floyd and Jesse

  9  Burkett, two white men who were attendants at the Mo-Jo gas

10  station in Port St. Joe, Florida, were murdered, and

11         WHEREAS, Freddie Lee Pitts and Wilbert Lee, both black

12  men who had separately stopped at the gas station within

13  approximately 24 hours before the attendants were discovered

14  to be missing, were accused of the murder and intensively

15  interrogated by means that included several lie detector

16  tests, and

17         WHEREAS, initially, both men maintained their innocence

18  during repeated interrogations and their innocence was

19  supported by several alibi witnesses, but, subsequently, a

20  crucial alibi witness changed her testimony and the accused

21  themselves, on August 17, 1963, pled guilty to first-degree

22  murder, and

23         WHEREAS, on August 28, 1968, Mr. Pitts and Mr. Lee were

24  tried, found guilty of first-degree murder, and sentenced to

25  death, and

26         WHEREAS, numerous circumstances surrounding the trial

27  cast doubt upon the finding of guilt, including:  the fact

28  that the men did not attempt to flee in the intervals between

29  periods of questioning that closely followed the murders; the

30  fact that one of their alibi witnesses, Willie Mae Lee, who

31  had seen Mr. Lee at the gas station the day before the

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    Florida Senate - 1998        (NP)                        SB 68
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  1  attendants were discovered to be missing, initially contended

  2  that she knew nothing of the crime but later accused Mr. Pitts

  3  and subsequently accused both men of the crime; the fact that

  4  the court-appointed attorney who represented both men was the

  5  family attorney for one of the victims; and the fact that the

  6  state attorney failed to provide to the counsel for the men

  7  three important evidentiary documents, and

  8         WHEREAS, when the conviction was appealed to the

  9  Florida Supreme Court, the defendants' attorney filed only a

10  three-page brief that did not cite any legal authorities, and

11         WHEREAS, in 1964, a man named Curtis "Bo" Adams, who

12  was incarcerated in Key West for armed robbery, told a law

13  enforcement officer that he had information about the murder

14  of Mr. Floyd and Mr. Burkett and also told the Sheriff of Bay

15  County the location of the murder weapon, and

16         WHEREAS, after Mr. Adams's 1966 incarceration in

17  Broward County for the murder of a gas-station employee by

18  means that were similar to those used in the Floyd-Burkett

19  murders, Mr. Adams led the Port St. Joe state attorney to the

20  site where Mr. Floyd's and Mr. Burkett's bodies had been

21  found, and he later confessed to murdering them, and

22         WHEREAS, Mr. Adams's girlfriend with whom he was living

23  in Port St. Joe at the time of the Floyd-Burkett murders

24  testified that he had told her that he robbed the Mo-Jo

25  station and killed the attendants, and

26         WHEREAS, after Mr. Pitts's and Mr. Lee's convictions

27  were set aside on April 29, 1969, partly on the grounds that

28  there was a "knowing or negligent withholding of evidence by

29  the state," and, while that decision was on appeal, Attorney

30  General Robert Shevin requested a new trial, conceding that

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    Florida Senate - 1998        (NP)                        SB 68
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  1  the state in 1963 had suppressed evidence, and the new trial

  2  was granted by the Florida Supreme Court and held in 1972, and

  3         WHEREAS, at that trial, Curtis "Bo" Adams's request for

  4  immunity was denied and he invoked the Fifth Amendment and

  5  refused to testify, and both his taped confession and the

  6  testimony of his former girlfriend were ruled inadmissible and

  7  were never heard by the jury, and

  8         WHEREAS, at that trial, both Mr. Pitts and Mr. Lee were

  9  again convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death,

10  which sentence was appealed, and

11         WHEREAS, before that appeal was decided, the United

12  States Supreme Court, on June 29, 1972, held that the death

13  penalty was unconstitutional as applied, and

14         WHEREAS, the First District Court of Appeal of this

15  state, on February 3, 1975, upheld the murder convictions, and

16  the men seemed bound to serve sentences of life imprisonment,

17  and

18         WHEREAS, on September 11, 1975, Governor Reubin Askew,

19  with the concurrence of three members of the Cabinet, granted

20  Mr. Pitts and Mr. Lee a full pardon, stating that

21  "[s]ubstantial doubt exists as to the guilt of Pitts and

22  Lee...," and

23         WHEREAS, since that time, a number of unsuccessful

24  claim bills have been filed on their behalf in the Florida

25  Senate and the Florida House of Representatives, and

26         WHEREAS, despite his pardon, Mr. Lee has also suffered

27  the inequity of being removed from his position as a Child

28  Care Worker II at the Juvenile Justice Center in Dade County,

29  because of chapter 85-54, Laws of Florida, which prohibits

30  even rehabilitated felons who have been convicted of

31  first-degree murder from holding a position in a program of

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    Florida Senate - 1998        (NP)                        SB 68
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  1  the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services that

  2  provides care to children for 15 hours or more per week, and

  3         WHEREAS, there is a strong argument, supported in dicta

  4  by the Third District Court of Appeal of this state in Eula

  5  Mae Calhoun vs. Department of Health and Rehabilitative

  6  Services, 500 So.2d 674 (Fla. App. 3rd Dist., 1987), that a

  7  full pardon could exempt employees from the child-care law's

  8  inflexible ban on rehabilitated ex-felons, and

  9         WHEREAS, the Legislature, in its decision about whether

10  to compensate Mr. Lee and Mr. Pitts, may consider matters that

11  were inadmissible before a court, such as the confession by

12  Mr. Adams and the corroborative testimony of his girlfriend,

13  and

14         WHEREAS, there is, as Governor Askew indicated,

15  sufficient evidence to doubt the guilt of Mr. Pitts and Mr.

16  Lee, and

17         WHEREAS, considering the totality of the circumstances,

18  even though there is no legally responsible entity that is

19  liable to Mr. Pitts or to Mr. Lee, equity and justice dictate

20  that a miscarriage of justice occurred and that agents of the

21  state cooperated in that miscarriage, either deliberately or

22  negligently or both, NOW, THEREFORE,

23

24  Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:

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26         Section 1.  The sum of $1.5 million is appropriated

27  from the General Revenue Fund to be paid to Freddie Lee Pitts

28  and the sum of $1.5 million is appropriated from the General

29  Revenue Fund to be paid to Wilbert Lee, as compensation for

30  having been victims of a miscarriage of justice.

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    Florida Senate - 1998        (NP)                        SB 68
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  1         Section 2.  The Comptroller is directed to draw his

  2  warrants upon the General Revenue Fund in the sum of $1.5

  3  million in favor of Freddie Lee Pitts and in the sum of $1.5

  4  million in favor of Wilbert Lee, and the Treasurer is directed

  5  to pay the same out of funds in the General Revenue Fund not

  6  otherwise appropriated.

  7         Section 3.  This act shall take effect July 1 of the

  8  year in which enacted.

  9

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11                          SENATE SUMMARY

12    Appropriates $1.5 million from the General Revenue Fund
      to be paid to Freddie Lee Pitts and $1.5 million to be
13    paid to Wilbert Lee as compensation for a miscarriage of
      justice.
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