death penalty news--FLORIDA

[Rick Halperin <rhalperi@post.cis.smu.edu>]

Monday, 3-16-98--



FLORIDA:

If justice delayed is justice denied, then Freddie Lee Pitts and Wilbert 
Lee will never really receive it.  But the compensation bill the 
legislature is finally considering seriously after 20 years of failed 
attempts would at least offer some financial recompense for the wrongs 
these men suffered at the hands of the state. 

Pitts and Lee, who are African-American, spent 12 years on death row 
after being wrongfully convicted in 1963 of murdering 2 gas station 
attendants in the Panhandle town of Port St. Joe.  Apparently, because 
they had argued that day with one of the attendants regarding the
station's whites-only restrooms, they became targets for prosecution. 

According to Pitts and Lee, they confessed to the crime after hours of 
beatings and interrogation.  Later, another man admitted committing the 
crime, but that information was not shared at Pitts and Lee's second 
trial, and they were again convicted of the murders.  Finally, in 1975,
Gov. Reubin Askew pardoned the men. 

Since then, there has been an annual effort in the legislature to provide 
compensation for the injustice done to them.  This year, due to the 
freakish convolutions of Florida politics, it looks as if their 
reparations may finally be awarded. 

Republicans are using the $3-million claims bill for Pitts and Lee as a 
way to woo African-American legislators.  When House Democrats outraged 
black legislators by ousting Rep. Willie Logan, D-Opa-locka, as leader, 
Republican lawmakers saw an opportunity to gain their support.  Passing 
the compensation bill, which never before has even had a hearing in the 
Senate, looks like it will be part of that good will. 

When the government not only makes a mistake, but knowingly prosecutes 
the wrong people, it should pay for the damage it has caused to their 
lives.  On 4 previous occasions, the legislature has made financial 
amends to men wrongfully convicted of crimes. 

Here, the state's role was particularly ugly and pernicious, because it 
was grounded in racism.  That needs to be acknowledged with a symbolic 
damage award, just as the crime of complicity in the Rosewood massacre 
was acknowledged by the state in 1996 by awarding $150,000 to each of the 
9 survivors and families. 

As Lee told Times reporter Lucy Morgan:  "Every year we come with the 
faith and with the love of God in our heart.  We hope this year will be 
the year men and women stand up and do the right thing." 

(source:  St. Petersburg Times)






Rick Halperin
AI-Texas

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