Terry Lenamon / Reba Kennedy

Subscribe to Terry Lenamon / Reba Kennedy's Posts
Contact:Read more about Terry Lenamon / Reba Kennedy

1. In your jurisdiction, if you are charged with a state crime, will the state’s discovery in your case be accessible as a public record, like the “document dumps” made famous in the Casey Anthony case?

2. In your jurisdiction, if you or a family member is charged with a state crime, what are your protections against people going through your trash and demonstrating in front of your home 24/7, as occurred at the Anthony family home after Casey Anthony was arrested on charges of filicide?

3. If you are interviewed by the local authorities, are you being videotaped? Is that videotape available to the media? In the Anthony case, interviews were videotaped and those videotapes have been provided to the media.
Continue Reading Five Questions to Ask Yourself about the Casey Anthony Case

There are really two death rows in Florida: one for the men, located at the Florida State Prison and Correctional Institution in Raiford, and a separate facility for the women at the Broward Correctional Facility in Fort Lauderdale. As of today’s date, there was one woman on Florida’s Death Row and 391 men.

(Who is the only woman on Florida’s Death Row? Tiffany Cole, a 27 year old female who was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of a retired Florida couple and sentenced to death for the killing of each victim (receiving two death penalty sentences).)

The Florida Department of Corrections actually provides a virtual tour of a Death Row prison cell, so you can see the tiny area in which these prisoners reside. Measuring 6′ (width) x 9′(depth) x 9.5′ (height), these cells are where those sentenced to death live – by themselves, they do not share a cell – until it is time for their death sentence to be carried out. Then, they are moved to the Death Watch cell, which is close to the execution site. The Death Watch cell is slightly larger than the Death Row cell.

Those individuals living on Death Row get three meals a day. Breakfast is at 5 a.m., dinner is over by 4:30 p.m. Lunch is somewhere around noon. They can only use spoons to eat their food, which is served to them on cafeteria trays. The food is prepared at the prison cafeteria.
Continue Reading What It’s Really Like on Florida’s Death Row

Filicide, the killing of a child by its parent, has unique characteristics making it different from other forms of homicide.[1] Filicide seems particularly horrifying and inexplicable, especially when the parent is the mother.

Remember first that, in the United States, a staggering number of children go missing each year. In 2001, 797,500 children under 18 were reported missing, resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day.[2] Unfortunately, of these missing children, nearly 1,300 were victims of homicide.[3] Nearly half of these children were under the age of five, and a parent killed over half of these.[4] Of all the children under age five killed during the period 1976 to 2000, 31% were killed by fathers, 30% by mothers, 23% killed by male acquaintances, 7% by other relatives, and 3% by strangers.[5]

Maternal Filicide – The Profile of Mothers Who Kill Their Children

A general profile of mothers most at risk of committing filicide has developed. Typically, the mother is young, around 21 years of age. She is single and has had multiple unstable relationships with men. Either she is mentally deficient or an apparently normal young woman, forced to put off high school graduation, college, or career because of pregnancy. She is unemployed and has financial difficulties. She may have suffered from serious mental illness in the past, or only manifested undiagnosed personality changes after the birth of her child. Roughly, one fifth of these mothers have been victims of physical or sexual abuse.
Continue Reading In Depth Look: Filicide is Different – 1

There is a federal death penalty, just like there is the option of capital punishment in the majority of states, and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh comes to mind as a well-recognized example of the federal death penalty statute in action. (McVeigh’s 2001 execution was the first exercise of federal capital punishment since 1963.)

However, this week was the first time since federal capital punishment was authorized once again by Congress, over twenty years ago, that a Florida jury actually voted to put someone to death as punishment for their crime.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Turnpike Killings.

On March 31, 2009, defendants Daniel Troya and Ricardo Sanchez, Jr. stood to hear an unanimous jury verdict that condemned the two men to death for the killing of Luis Julian Escobedo, 4, and Luis Damian Escobedo, 3, back in October 2006, while voting that the two defendants should receive life sentences for the killings of Luis and Yessica Escobedo. The jury deliberated almost four days before returning with their decision.

Of course, this is a drug-related crime. The Escobedo couple was involved with a drug cartel run by Daniel Varela, who has been sentenced to life in prison on drug trafficking charges, and it is undisputed that the deaths were related to the distribution and sale of cocaine in South Florida.

This is far from over.
Continue Reading Jury Votes Federal Death Penalty for Florida Turnpike Killings

This month, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear a well-watched Florida case, Thompson v. McNeil (08-7369), where William Lee Thompson, sentenced to death in a Florida court back in 1976, requested their consideration of the question: does extended delay of the sentence of death amount to cruel (if not unusual) punishment and therefore violate the 8th Amendment?

Well, the High Court did fail to grant writ (opinion), but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a lot to consider from the opinion that did spring forth. Let’s ponder the following:

Justice John Paul Stevens’ Statement

First, I’ve read that Justice John Paul Stevens issued a dissent in this case; however, technically it was not a dissent but a statement. And, a statement that conforms to his longstanding position that the the death penalty is wrong. (Stevens already called for an end to the death penalty.)

In it, Stevens wrote, “[o]ur experience during the past three decades has demonstrated that delays in state-sponsored killings are inescapable and that executing defendants after such is unacceptably cruel,” to which Justice Stephen Breyer gave his support in a formal dissent from the denial of certiorari.

Justice Stephen Breyer’s Dissent

In his dissent, Breyer went into the appellate pathways that the Williamson case has taken over the past 30+ years, including such considerations as the fact that Williamson’s spent over half his life on Death Row while the appeals have taken a life all their own, and the reality that Williamson’s accomplice – who might have been more culpable than Williamson in the underlying crime – was not sentenced to death. Interesting point.

Justice Clarence Thomas’ Concurrence

Justice Clarence Thomas, meanwhile, wrote his own concurrence to the Court’s denial of certiorari. In it, Thomas opined “”[i]t is the crime and not the punishment imposed by the jury or the delay in execution that was ‘unacceptably cruel, …” and thereafter provided extensive details on the underlying crime for which Thompson was convicted to support his position. (It is not disputed that the crime for which Thompson was convicted was shocking.)

Why Isn’t This Cruel – If Not Unusual? Oh, and What About the Budget?
Continue Reading U.S. Supreme Court nixes hearing Thompson v. McNeil (08-7369) – but does 32 years in a Death Row cell amount to cruel and unusual punishment?

FACDL Death Penalty Seminar, Day 1:

This weekend, I am attending the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s 15th Annual Death Penalty Seminar. This is an annual event that I have often attended since its inception. It is an opportunity for death penalty lawyers to share tactics, techniques, and review the latest developments in the law.

Steve Potolsky, a renowned criminal defense lawyer who was on the team in the first Federal death penalty case tried in Florida, started the seminar with a discussion of national attitudes toward the death penalty Steve asserted that we are entering a period of national reconsideration for the death penalty and cited several reasons for the decline in death sentences nationally. Among these are increased publilcity surrounding exoneration by DNA evidence and the fact that many states have done away with the possibility of parole or early release in such cases. He noted that New Hampshire repealed the death penalty.
Continue Reading Update – 1: the FACDL (Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers) Death Is Different 15th Annual Death Penalty Seminar

As stated earlier, a separate multi-step process exists between conviction and the imposition of the death penalty. After a defendant is found guilty of a capital offense subject to the death penalty, the first step is a second trial to determine whether death will be imposed. At this trial, the jury hears evidence concerning aggravators, circumstances that weigh toward death, and mitigators, which weigh in favor of mercy. The trial judge performs the next step by actually determining the sentence. Although the trial judge gives great weight to the jury recommendation, the trial judge is not bound by the jury’s recommendation.

A trial judge has more experience in both the criminal process and facts of crimes themselves. What the average person, inexperienced in crimes, thinks is incredibly significant or especially heinous, may not in balance be so significant or heinous. The cool reasoning of a judge also serves to counterbalance any overly inflammatory prosecution.
Continue Reading In Depth Look: Death in Florida – 3