Chapter 1
Florida State Prison 

      "I DIDN'T RAPE that girl, and I didn't kill her. In fact, I never even saw that girl before in my life. I know you've heard this from every client you've represented, but...I'm innocent." Jon Clayton took a breath, leaned forward and looking me straight in the eye said, "Mr. Thomas...I swear to God...I...didn't...do it."

       "Well, Jon, you're wrong. I don't hear that from every client." I shrugged and added, "A lot of them, yes, but not every one. So my question is, if you didn't kill her, how'd you end up here?"

       "I don't know, sir. I went to trial. I got convicted. All I know for sure is I didn't do it," he said, shaking his head. His gaze never wavering, he sighed and said, "My attorney said it was the bullet that convicted me. They said the bullet they found in the girl matched the gun I was arrested with."

       "Any ideas how that might've happened?" I asked, knowing prisoners have plenty of time to think of answers to such questions.

       "Either someone else used the pistol and put it back in my car, or the cops got the pistols mixed up, or maybe they just plain lied about it...I don't know," he said, "but I swear to God I didn't shoot that girl. I didn't kill her."

       Good stock answers. We criminal lawyers call it the SODDI defense - - Some Other Dude Did It. Somehow, it was always someone else. However, innocence is rarely a question after all direct appeals have run, and not after five years on death row. I wrote what Clayton told me on a yellow legal pad, and decided I might as well start with the penalty phase, or why he was sentenced to death.

       Just because a person is convicted of a capital crime does not mean he is automatically sentenced to die. The nature of the crime and the prior life of the defendant are considered. Then the jury recommends, and the judge imposes, the sentence. I needed to know about Clayton's background, his life - - the good he had done, the pain he had suffered. Maybe I could at least keep him alive.

       I leaned my chair back, hitting the wall before it balanced and said, "Jon, I need to know about you, about your life before your arrest. Tell me about yourself. What do you remember about your childhood?"

       "Wait a minute, Mr. Thomas," he said. "You don't believe me, do you? You think I killed her."

       "It doesn't matter what I think. I don't care if you are guilty or not. What matters to me is that you're alive, and I'd like to keep you that way. I'll go over the trial. But what I need from you is not in the trial records. I need to know you from the day you were born."

       "You mean you want to overturn my sentence, but you aren't interested in overturning my conviction."

       "Not so - -"

      "Listen, I didn't do it," he said.

       Clayton's voice had deepened and there was a cold edge to his words. His eyes narrowed. He leaned toward me over the table and said, "I'm innocent, but I'd rather be dead than rot in a cage the rest of my life. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

       "Yes, I - -"

       "Do you have any idea how I feel?"

       We sat staring at one another for a moment. I could hear his breathing. I could feel a slight ache in my left arm as my blood pressure rose.

       I believed I understood how he felt. I had heard it before and often wondered what I would do were I in his situation. Convicted and waiting to be executed versus life with no chance of release, guilty or innocent. No chance to sail, to walk beaches, to see sunsets. Would I choose to go to my death quietly - - perhaps a form of suicide? No . . . each time I'd considered the question, I had chosen life. But if actually faced with a caged life, with absolutely no hope of freedom, I'm not sure I would make the same choice.

                    Continued between the covers of a very good book.

Post script

       Death Row Defender is set in 1996, and the laws involved have evolved since then. Under a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the JURY must find as a fact that the defendant should die. The law as it was when this story was supposed to take place diluted the jury's responsibility in the sentencing process.

       Another change, for better or worse, is that once the direct appeal has been denied by the Florida Supreme Court the sentence is considered final, and all agencies holding records concerning the case are to send those records to Tallahassee to the Capital Post Conviction Records Repository. Thus, Woody would no longer have to go to each agency to look for records. On the other hand, if it appears that the records are incomplete, the battles are just as fierce as ever before, and from a defense standpoint, the possibility of abuse is greater.

       Repeatedly, here in Florida and across the U.S., those convicted and sentenced to die are being exonerated, usually by DNA testing, and most often after fighting the State for years - - even after the proof of absolute innocence is found. And repeatedly, legislatures refuse to reimburse the exonerated even for the costs of having to defend themselves, much less for their lives which have been wasted.           

 Ray Dix     2005

 

 

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Updated Tuesday, October 24, 2006

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