Death and the Mistress Of Delay

<v TV Host>KCTS Seattle: Death and the Mistress of Delay, produced by Dave Davis. <v TV Host>Record date May 26, 1983, length 28:46. <v TV Host 2>The following program is a production of KCTS Seattle. <v Host>In November of 1980, 10-year-old Elisa Nelson was kidnaped <v Host>and murdered. The murderer was caught, convicted, and sentenced to death. <v Host>Wendy Nelson is angry.

<v Host>3 years later, her daughter's murderer is still alive. <v Host>For the Nelsons, there will be no justice until he is executed. <v Host>Doug McCray, a convicted murderer, has been on death row for 10 years. <v Host>Scheduled to die in the electric chair, he had no lawyer and his appeals had run out. <v Host>This man saved his life. <v Host>Volunteering to take McCray's case just 2 weeks before the execution, Bob <v Host>Dillinger won a last minute stay. <v Host>He's been a hated man ever since. <v Host>This woman, Sharlette Holdman, is known in Florida as the "Mistress of Delay." <v Host>She has prevented dozens of executions. <v Host>For Holdeman and the defense lawyers, time is running out. <v Host>The people of Florida want the executions to begin. <v Host>Washington and 38 other states have legalized capital punishment since the United

<v Host>States Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional in 1976. <v Host>But we have not had an execution here in 20 years. <v Host>When 1 does take place, how will it affect our state? <v Host>The answer may lie in events 3000 miles away in a state where an execution <v Host>has already happened and where many more are imminent. <v Host>This is Flordia: alligator swamps, white sand beaches,

<v Host>high-rolling millionaires and a high rate of poverty. <v Host>A place to retire and a place for the immigrant to start a new life. <v Host>Acres of orange groves mask the havens of drug smugglers and organized crime. <v Host>Enmeshed in these contradictions, Florida has 98000 violent <v Host>crimes each year. <v Host>1500 murders. 26000 people in state prison. <v Host>197 men on death row, more than any other state in the nation. <v Host>90 percent of the people here favor capital punishment. <v Host>51 executions have been scheduled and only 1 has actually taken place. <v Host>This is due in large part to the work of one very unpopular woman, <v Host>Sharlette Holdman. <v Sharlette Holdman>Hey. Good morning. [fade to background] <v Host>Sharlette Holdman directs the Florida Clearinghouse on Criminal Justice. <v Host>Operating on small grants from church foundations, the Clearinghouse is the nerve center

<v Host>for the network of defense lawyers who are fighting for the lives of the 197 men on <v Host>death row. Sharlette's opposition to capital punishment developed from <v Host>10 years in the southern civil rights movement. <v Sharlette Holdman>I'm not sure that I was absolutely against the death penalty until 1974 <v Sharlette Holdman>when we went to death row and we found 50 people on death row. <v Sharlette Holdman>I think 38 of them were black folks. <v Sharlette Holdman>And of those 38, 25 were there for raping white women. <v Sharlette Holdman>The same legacy of the death penalty that you hear growing up <v Sharlette Holdman>was what they used to do in 1800s, lynching blacks for eyeballin' <v Sharlette Holdman>white women. <v Sharlette Holdman>Yes, please. May I speak to Sandra Goldenfarb? <v Sharlette Holdman>Sharlette Holdman. <v Sharlette Holdman>At the Florida Clearinghouse on Criminal Justice. <v Sharlette Holdman>Miss Goldenfarb. Well, we're in quite a crisis right now because

<v Sharlette Holdman>1 of the men against whom a death warrant has been issued setting his execution <v Sharlette Holdman>date for the 15th, about 3 weeks ago- about 3 weeks away, doesn't <v Sharlette Holdman>have an attorney. And unless we find him an attorney, he literally <v Sharlette Holdman>um would be executed. If [fade to background] <v Sharlette Holdman>The state of Florida provides indigent people, and everybody on death <v Sharlette Holdman>row is indigent, court-appointed, state-paid council at trial <v Sharlette Holdman>and on direct appeal to the Florida Supreme Court. <v Sharlette Holdman>After that point, a person on death row is on his own. <v Sharlette Holdman>And unless I find a volunteer attorney, they will be executed <v Sharlette Holdman>solely because they do not have an attorney. <v Doug McCray>When officers attend to my cell, they informed me that my

<v Doug McCray>death warrant had been signed. <v Doug McCray>The only thing that I recall stating at that time was that I did not have <v Doug McCray>a lawyer. <v Doug McCray>You have been on death row for 8 and a half years and then you're told <v Doug McCray>that your death warrant has been signed. <v Doug McCray>You have an execution date and that you have no lawyer. <v Doug McCray>[fade to background] <v Host>Doug McCray was sentenced to death in 1973. <v Host>His case had been on appeal until last March when his lawyer suddenly left the state. <v Host>If it were not for Sharlette Holdman, McCray would have been executed. <v Sharlette Holdman>I imagine we called 20 or 30 attorneys around the state trying <v Sharlette Holdman>to find someone to take Doug's case, and when those attorneys declined, <v Sharlette Holdman>we had no choice but to go to Bob. <v Sharlette Holdman>Yeah. Is Bob Dillinger in yet? <v Bob Dillinger>Y'ello. [fade to background] <v Bob Dillinger>I had just gone out into private practice when Sharlette and called said they had a case.

<v Bob Dillinger>You know, the warrant's signed. There was 2 weeks. <v Bob Dillinger>Uh can you do it? I said, well, if- if it's that desperate, <v Bob Dillinger>I'll do it. <v Bob Dillinger>Okay. Well, is there any way that I can get a hold of Doug McCray up there <v Bob Dillinger>in the state prison? <v Doug McCray>Once I discovered that I had a lawyer, you know, I really felt <v Doug McCray>like I had a chance, you know, I had a fighting chance to live, at least because uh <v Doug McCray>not having one, you know, I just conceded to the fact that <v Doug McCray>I would indeed die. <v Host>Late on a Friday night, Dillinger began reading the 2000 page transcript of <v Host>the original trial. <v Bob Dillinger>You're looking at this transcript to see what <v Bob Dillinger>errors exist in the transcript. <v Bob Dillinger>Uh and it's just- it's intense pressure and you're burdened by making a mistake and then <v Bob Dillinger>you're thinking, you know, the execution is less than 2 weeks away.

<v Host>The transcript included a profile of Doug McCray. <v Host>He had been a high school honor student and an all-conference basketball player. <v Host>After high school, he had gone to college for 2 years and then into the service where he <v Host>developed a drinking problem. <v Host>In November of 1973, McCray was arrested and accused of raping and murdering an <v Host>elderly woman. The evidence was conflicting. <v Host>McCray himself claimed to be so drunk that night he could not remember what actually <v Host>happened. An all-white jury recommended life in prison, but <v Host>the judge overruled the jury and sentenced McCray to death. <v Bob Dillinger>You almost don't want to know your client. <v Bob Dillinger>You would rather deal with the facts and what the prosecution is going to try and prove <v Bob Dillinger>and attack it that way. <v Bob Dillinger>And sometimes just sit there and all of a sudden this cold chill just goes over <v Bob Dillinger>you with, you know, this case is just so much different. <v Bob Dillinger>You just start to tighten up, you know, on what, you know- this case is so <v Bob Dillinger>different. What am I going to do? You gotta get- you gotta do something.

<v Host>Dillinger kept reading all night, Friday, all day, Saturday, all <v Host>Saturday night. Finally, at the end of the transcript, he found what he <v Host>had been looking for. <v Bob Dillinger>I noticed that the judge did not instruct the jury properly. <v Bob Dillinger>What McCray was convicted of was a homicide or a death that occurs in the course of <v Bob Dillinger>a rape. They have to prove the rape beyond a reasonable doubt. <v Bob Dillinger>Just like they have to prove murder beyond a reasonable doubt. <v Bob Dillinger>He didn't explain that to the jury. <v Bob Dillinger>It was a fundamental error. <v Host>Dillinger wrote out his appeal and 2 days later flew to Tallahassee to present it to the <v Host>state Supreme Court. <v Host>Doug McCray was granted a stay of execution. <v Bob Dillinger>When this happened, you know, I started getting the hate mail from people and uh hate <v Bob Dillinger>phone calls and the messages left on- with the answering service and stuff <v Bob Dillinger>that would say such things as I hope your wife gets murdered and raped or your child gets <v Bob Dillinger>murdered and raped, then you'll know what it's like.

<v Bob Dillinger>It's kind of scary in a sense. I understand that from the personal point of view. <v Bob Dillinger>I mean, if my wife or my child was murdered, I'd have an emotional reaction to that, and <v Bob Dillinger>I understand what those people feel. <v Bob Dillinger>But, you know, what we're talking about is a legal system and how the legal system <v Bob Dillinger>functions. And I want the legal system to function in a logical and moral <v Bob Dillinger>way and not in an emotional way. <v Host>Doug McRay now faces many more years on death row, as Dillinger petitions the <v Host>courts for a new trial. <v Host>He spends 24 hours a day in a 6 by 9-foot cell, much like this one. <v Host>He is let out twice a week to take a shower and once a week for exercise. <v Host>200 miles away on the west coast of Florida is the quiet little town <v Host>of Palm Harbor, population 3000.

<v Host>A backwater community, Palm Harbor seems quiet, safe and neighborly. <v Host>[background chatter] <v Host>The Nelsons were among those who moved here because it seemed like a good place to raise <v Host>a family. The Nelson kids, Jeff and Alisa, could ride their bikes <v Host>to the elementary school just a few blocks away. <v Host>But on November 4th, 1980, 10-year-old Alisa was late leaving for school <v Host>as a result of a dentist appointment. <v Host>She left home on her bike about 10:00 a.m.. <v Host>Somewhere between this point and the school, just 2 blocks away, she disappeared. <v Host>When Alisa didn't come home from school, local sheriffs organized a massive search for <v Host>the missing girl, but it was her father who found the first signs of what had happened. <v Mr. Nelson>Uh November fourth, when we- we couldn't find her and I came out here, I found her bike

<v Mr. Nelson>over the edge of this bank here, it looked just like what it does across the thing. <v Mr. Nelson>And uh and I climbed on the bank, went all the way down this little <v Mr. Nelson>drainage canal or ditch or stream here all the way down to the next street. <v Mr. Nelson>I remember running up that- up that canal all the way, just hollerin', just dreadin' that <v Mr. Nelson>I was gonna find something I didn't want to see. <v Mr. Nelson>This is the orange grove were where they found her body the next morning. <v Mr. Nelson>The whole community of Palm Harbor was lookin' and but it was a girl <v Mr. Nelson>worker that I initially found her body, right. <v Mr. Nelson>It was only a couple hundred feet off the road here. <v Mr. Nelson>[sigh] <v Mr. Nelson>with her head bashed in with an old concrete pole. <v Host>Just days after the murder, Larry Mann, a local machinist, was arrested and accused

<v Host>of kidnaping and murdering Alisa Nelson. <v Host>The evidence against him was overwhelming. <v Host>The jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to death. <v Judge>It is ordered that you be committed to the custody of the Department of Corrections of <v Judge>this state, and at a time and place to be later specified, should be <v Judge>put to death in a manner prescribed by law. <v Judge>May God have mercy on your soul. <v Host>But 3 years later, Larry Mann has yet to be executed. <v Mr. Nelson>Our little girl was- was brutally murdered. <v Mr. Nelson>And uh the state says that he should die, and as far as we're concerned <v Mr. Nelson>that, you know, there will be no end until he does. <v Mr. Nelson>There's always that chance that he'll get out and it's-. <v Wendy Nelson>Chance? It's- There's no such thing as life in prison in the first place. <v Wendy Nelson>They get out eventually. Now they're talking about reducing a 25-year minimum mandatory <v Wendy Nelson>here in Florida to a 12 and a half years. <v Wendy Nelson>He's gonna be a young man when he gets out, if they reduce him to life sentence, or to <v Wendy Nelson>life in prison.

<v Wendy Nelson>And when did 12 years every replace uh someone else's life <v Wendy Nelson>in terms of punishment? [typewriter clicks] <v Wendy Nelson>The average citizen doesn't see any finality to justice. <v Wendy Nelson>You're hearing more and more about people taking matters into their own hands. <v Wendy Nelson>They feel the system is failing them. <v Host>Wendy Nelson has become an active lobbyist for the death penalty. <v Host>Every day she sits at her typewriter, writing to judges, politicians, and newspapers, <v Host>urging that the death sentences be carried out. <v Host>The Nelsons and several other families who have been the victims of violent crime have <v Host>formed an organization called the League of Victims and Empathizers, LOVE, <v Host>which is publicly battling Sharlette Holdman over the delay in executions. <v Host>They meet monthly in the Nelson's living room. <v Member of LOVE>Everybody is trying to take care of the criminal. <v Member of LOVE>Who's taking care of the victim and the victim's family? <v Member of LOVE>And the outcry of the victim's families in the neighborhood? <v Member of LOVE>Nobody. <v Wendy Nelson>I think the thing that disturbed me the most was when we went in for the retrial for

<v Wendy Nelson>Larry Mann. To be able to sit in that courtroom and realize that we were all <v Wendy Nelson>civilized human beings, and there's this 1 animal, that all the rest of us get to sit <v Wendy Nelson>there in- while this judgment is being made on this, literally, this animal's <v Wendy Nelson>life. This- this animal has done something wrong. <v Wendy Nelson>He stepped outside the bounds of reason, outside the bounds of society's rules. <v Wendy Nelson>He stepped over that thin line. And this man has done something terrible. <v Wendy Nelson>He's taken away a person that we love. <v Member of LOVE>I think if the public knew that these killers- <v Member of LOVE>that these killers would be executed, then they wouldn't- they wouldn't have the fear <v Member of LOVE>that they have today about what's happening on the street, and I think that what's <v Member of LOVE>happening on the street would not be happening on the street as far as violent crime <v Member of LOVE>goes. Of course, that's my [fade into background]. <v Host>The deterrent effect of capital punishment have been studied for 30 years. <v Host>Study after study has shown that the death penalty has no impact whatever on the murder <v Host>rates. But for some, the studies are not convincing. <v Member of LOVE>And I can't understand where they're coming up with these ideas that- because how do they <v Member of LOVE>know it's not a deterrent, 'cause it hasn't been tried in so long.

<v Member of LOVE>Because of the stays of execution and the unlimited amount of appeals that have going on, <v Member of LOVE>the death penalty is, of course, no deterrent at this point. <v Member of LOVE>If it was every person who had been found guilty and sentenced to that <v Member of LOVE>penalty and it happened, that's all we need. <v Member of LOVE>If it's life, it's life. If it's death electric chair or whatever, <v Member of LOVE>let's get the show on the road. <v Host>More are sentenced to death each week. <v Host>For Sharlette Holdman, the length of the appeals is not the issue. <v Sharlette Holdman>Unless private attorneys take the cases, then <v Sharlette Holdman>none- none of the people on death row are going to have an opportunity to get into <v Sharlette Holdman>federal courts and have their cases reviewed. <v Sharlette Holdman>It doesn't really matter whether it takes a year to get a fair trial or whether it takes <v Sharlette Holdman>25 years to get a fair trial. <v Sharlette Holdman>The important thing is that we give that to people on death row. <v Host>But once all the state court appeals have failed, there is a last opportunity to go <v Host>before the governor and plead for mercy. <v Host>The first Tuesday of each month, Sharlette Holdman goes to the governor's clemency

<v Host>hearing. <v Sharlette Holdman>Clemency is frequently the most important step in a legal case <v Sharlette Holdman>because we have an opportunity to put into the record issues that were never <v Sharlette Holdman>in the record before. <v Defense Lawyer>I would suggest to you, Mr. Governor, I have reviewed it. <v Defense Lawyer>And in my experience as a criminal defense lawyer over the past 12 years, I <v Defense Lawyer>question sufficiency of the evidence in this case to send Ordell <v Defense Lawyer>Riley to the electric chair. <v Defense Lawyer>I would suggest [fade into background]. <v Sharlette Holdman>My opposition to the death penalty that is based on the fact <v Sharlette Holdman>that it is used by those with privilege against those <v Sharlette Holdman>who have never had privilege, and the people in those positions of privilege, <v Sharlette Holdman>whether it's the governor, the judge, the prosecuting attorney, the arresting police <v Sharlette Holdman>officer, the jury foreman, never make the connection between themselves <v Sharlette Holdman>and the person against whom they are taking such severe action. <v Prosecutor>Mr. Riley has had all of the due process that's available.

<v Prosecutor>He has earned the death penalty and he is not entitled to the great grant <v Prosecutor>of executive clemency that he asks you for. <v Bob Graham>Thank you. <v Sharlette Holdman>A real victory is not just getting clemency, but if we convince <v Sharlette Holdman>the governor not to sign a death warrant. <v Sharlette Holdman>I think it's important for you to be sitting up there on the front row and saying, you're <v Sharlette Holdman>talking about a person, you're talking about my child. <v Mother of Suspect on Death Row>No, God got me in his hands. He taking care of me. <v Mother of Suspect on Death Row>'Cause he already got my child ?kill? Wrong. How would he like for somebody to take his <v Mother of Suspect on Death Row>child's life or somebody his people life and he's know they was innocent? <v Mother of Suspect on Death Row>Take care of my child, Jesus. Please, Lord. Jesus, <v Mother of Suspect on Death Row>take care of my child. <v Mother of Suspect on Death Row>[inaudible crying] <v Sharlette Holdman>It's not just that the- the power politics and the privilege that all the decision

<v Sharlette Holdman>makers have or exercise, it's their insensitivity <v Sharlette Holdman>to black people, to minorities, to poor people, to the families of those people. <v Sharlette Holdman>And the fact that they all use it for political gain. <v Bob Graham>I have no quarrel with the many procedural safeguards which assure <v Bob Graham>the fairness of criminal trials. <v Bob Graham>But I share the concern of many Americans over the suspension of justice <v Bob Graham>in endless appeals, whose purpose is clearly to forestall the imposition <v Bob Graham>of a lawful sentence of the court. <v Host>Governor Graham has signed 51 death warrants. <v Host>There has been 1 execution: in 1979, the execution <v Host>of John Spenkelink. <v Sharlette Holdman>I knew John as a human being and as a friend and as someone <v Sharlette Holdman>who had changed and grown and evolved during his years <v Sharlette Holdman>of confinement on death row. I didn't believe the day before that John would be executed.

<v Sharlette Holdman>I really believed that justice would work and that it was a matter <v Sharlette Holdman>of getting the right things done. <v Newscaster>But late Tuesday night was alive at the Florida State Prison as inmates and demonstrators <v Newscaster>chanted out of protest to the death penalty. <v Reporter 1>If his attorneys are not successful in winning another stay, John Spenkelink will be dead <v Reporter 1>in less than 3 hours. <v Reporter 2>While protesters were lighting candles, inmates were burning bedsheets and banging <v Reporter 2>on the walls. <v Peter Burns>John Spenkelink met with his family until 2 hours ago, and right now, he's meeting with <v Peter Burns>his minister. Peter Burns, action news at the Florida State Prison at Raiford. <v Doug McCray>I can look out of my cell bars and I can see numerous I mean, <v Doug McCray>hoards of state troopers. <v Doug McCray>I could see helicopters flying above, you know, I could see all- all <v Doug McCray>the militia and everything, you know, and that they were using <v Doug McCray>all this power, all these resources, just to kill 1 individual, whom <v Doug McCray>I knew.

<v Host>In their years on death row, John Spenkelink and Doug McCray had become friends. <v Doug McCray>They took him and they actually- <v Doug McCray>I can't believe they did it, but they actually strapped him in that <v Doug McCray>electric chair. <v Doug McCray>And they killed him. <v Doug McCray>[ambulance siren] I saw the ambulance come in. I saw them bring John's body out in a <v Doug McCray>black bag and uh he was such a grotesques site. <v Doug McCray>The only time I can see him now, you know, I don't see him <v Doug McCray>walking, walking around uh

<v Doug McCray>death-row. I don't feel him grabbing my hair, <v Doug McCray>tellin' me I need a haircut. <v Doug McCray>Yeah, no. You know, I can't hear him calling me McCray. <v Doug McCray>I can only see him in that black bag. <v Doug McCray>And um only God knows what his body <v Doug McCray>looked like at that time. <v Doug McCray>And- and I can only stand up at my cell bars. <v Doug McCray>And just cry. <v Sharlette Holdman>It's an overwhelming, painful sense <v Sharlette Holdman>of defeat and hopelessness. <v Sharlette Holdman>That my God, the entire state of Florida, with all its power, with all its <v Sharlette Holdman>resources, uh killed <v Sharlette Holdman>a- a human being on death row for absolutely no

<v Sharlette Holdman>reason and that we were powerless to stop it. <v Bob Dillinger>We all sit in fear the- what we call the bloodbath. <v Bob Dillinger>That is that when we've- it appears we have exhausted all <v Bob Dillinger>the appeals and it appears that the courts are- have closed to us, that there <v Bob Dillinger>are so many people on death row that it's going to take quite a- quite a number <v Bob Dillinger>of executions on a regular basis. <v Bob Dillinger>That type of a bloodbath. <v Bob Dillinger>I don't know if it'll make the population feel happy. <v Bob Dillinger>You know, or feel good that justice is being executed, so to speak. <v Bob Dillinger>Or maybe it will have the opposite reaction. <v Bob Dillinger>Maybe they'll get sick of it and realize it is just murder on a governmental scale. <v Host>In many ways, Washington is different from Florida.

<v Host>Under the law here, fewer crimes qualify for the death penalty and <v Host>we have always had less violent crime. <v Host>Recently, however, there has been a series of frightening murders that have put 2 men on <v Host>death row, but there has not been an execution here since 1963. <v Host>For 20 years, the gallows have been idle. <v Greg Canova>Given the fact that death is different, you have to assure that every avenue of appeal <v Greg Canova>is made available to a defendant who is subject to the death penalty. <v Greg Canova>On the other hand, I think there have been unnecessary delays historically in the <v Greg Canova>appellate systems, both on the state level and the federal level that have given the <v Greg Canova>public the impression that justice is not being speedily meted <v Greg Canova>out. <v Host>Greg Canova is a senior assistant attorney general for King County. <v Host>[Canova speaks in background] He coauthored Washington's current death penalty law. <v Greg Canova>Public opinion in this state is still strongly in favor of the death penalty. <v Greg Canova>The last poll I saw indicated somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 plus percent favoring

<v Greg Canova>the death penalty in specific cases. <v Tim Ford>The reason for that growth in support for the death penalty <v Tim Ford>in recent years is because it is just a symbolic issue, because people <v Tim Ford>don't believe it will really happen. <v Host>Tim Ford is a Washington defense attorney who specializes in death penalty cases. <v Tim Ford>We have only 2 cases that are going right now or <v Tim Ford>at a relatively early stage of the state appeal. <v Tim Ford>There are some substantial issues involved. <v Tim Ford>And I think that the uh they will certainly take some time <v Tim Ford>to hear so that- that even barring success in those cases, <v Tim Ford>I wouldn't anticipate this would happen here. <v Tim Ford>And hopefully the people of Washington will have another moment to reflect <v Tim Ford>before um they have blood on their hands. <v Host>Across the country, nearly 1200 wait on death row. <v Host>For many, the appeals are running out.

<v Host>As long as capital punishment is a law in the state of Washington, we will sooner or <v Host>later have to face an actual execution. <v Host>The bitter struggle that has divided Florida will divide us here as well. <v Host>When the battle begins over what is justice, death or delay, <v Host>will we feel that the ultimate penalty is worth the price? <v TV Host>The preceding program was a production of KCTS Seattle.