Edition: U.S. / Global

Florida Passes Bill to Quicken Execution Pace

Published: January 8, 2000

Florida lawmakers made sweeping changes today in the way the death penalty is carried out, approving a bill that they say will speed the appeals process so that death row inmates can be executed more quickly.

The law parallels steps Congress took in 1996 to limit the ability of state inmates to seek review in federal court, and is patterned after a 1995 Texas law that greatly speeded the pace of executions in that state.

Gov. Jeb Bush, who proposed and aggressively pushed for the Florida bill, as his brother George W. Bush did in Texas as governor of that state, said the speeding of the appeals process was intended to shorten the length between sentencing and execution to 5 years, from an average now of 14 years. His goal would be achieved by tightening filing deadlines and limiting the number of appeals.

''This is a historic piece of legislation that will be much more respectful of family members and victims of these heinous crimes,'' Jeb Bush said after the vote today. The law, he said, ''brings a semblance of justice to this very complicated issue.''

But opponents of the death penalty said the Florida law, combined with the federal action, would greatly impair the ability of Florida's 366 death row inmates to assert their constitutional rights.

''We have made one of the most precious rights in our system habeas corpus, the ability to come back into court and say, 'My constitutional rights have been violated,' '' said Elizabeth Semel, director of the American Bar Association's Death Penalty Representation Project in Washington.

Today's action, Ms. Semel said, deepens concerns that when it comes to habeas corpus for the state's death row inmates, ''We have made it so inaccessible that we risk losing it.''

Governor Bush said of Florida's death row inmates, ''No one's rights are being taken away.''

Opponents complained that lawmakers were pressured into hastily overhauling one of the most complicated and important pieces of the criminal justice system in a two-and-a-half-day special session. State Representative Les Miller, the House Democratic leader, called the change in the appeals process ''a reckless, rushed and risky piece of legislation.''

Legal experts around the country predicted that the shortening of the appeals process would be challenged on constitutional grounds, and that it could ultimately result in more delays and a slower pace of executions.

''This system has been tried out in Texas and has been shown to be a colossal failure,'' said George Kendall, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Inc. in New York. ''In Texas, they haven't been able to provide adequate legal representation.''

Larry Spalding, legislative staff counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said the lawmakers' action today represented a sort of victory for Mr. Bush as well as for the inmates.

''They get to say they're tough on crime,'' Mr. Spalding said, referring to the governor and the Legislature, ''and capital defense lawyers have just been given lots of ammunition.''

Mr. Bush's plan would pattern the appeals process in Florida after the one overseen by his brother, Governor Bush of Texas, where more people have been executed than in any other state since the Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume in 1976. As governor, George W. Bush has presided over the executions of 111 men and one woman.

Since Jeb Bush took office last January, one inmate has been executed. The inmate, Allen Lee Davis, bled profusely when he was electrocuted in July.

Photographs of his corpse, posted on the Internet by the Florida Supreme Court, showed Mr. Davis's contorted face and blood-soaked shirt, and contributed to a public outcry over the use of the electric chair.

Mr. Davis's was the latest in a series of botched executions that led the United States Supreme to announce that it would review Florida's use of the electric chair. Advised by legal experts that the state's death penalty was in jeopardy, Mr. Bush convened the special legislative session. But he linked it to his plan to restrict appeals, and that proposal was the dominating theme of the session.

As expected, the Legislature voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to make lethal injection the state's primary method of execution.

The reform bill imposes what is known as a ''dual track'' system, similar to that used in Texas, which requires inmates to file their post-conviction motions, or habeas corpus review, within six months of the day they file their direct appeal. In many states these motions are not filed until the direct appeal is concluded.

The post-conviction motion is the only legal means by which evidence that was not presented at trial can be introduced in a court. Legal experts who oppose the dual track system say that having both reviews proceed simultaneously and quickly makes it less likely that crucial evidence will be uncovered.

''If the Florida Supreme Court accepts this, this is not a great day for fairness and justice,'' Mr. Kendall said. ''This is going to guarantee the execution of the innocent.''

Governor Bush told reporters his proposal was fair. ''I want justice not to be delayed unnecessarily,'' he said.

Since 1973, 87 people on death row in the United States have been found to be wrongly convicted, and released. The average time those inmates spent on death row was seven and a half years, Ms. Semel said.

In a landmark case in Florida, Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee, who were sentenced to be executed for the 1963 murder of two gas station attendants in the Florida Panhandle, spent 12 years in prison -- nine and a half of them on death row -- before they were released and given full, unconditional pardons by Gov. Reubin Askew after another man confessed to the murders.

Mr. Pitts, now a 55-year-old contractor in Miami, took the floor on the first day of the special session here to tell lawmakers that he would have been dead if the shortening of the appeals process had been in effect years ago.

''Florida just voted themselves out of the 20th century,'' he said today.

Photo: State Representative Kenneth P. Pruitt of Florida, lower left, was congratulated yesterday by Dennis L. Jones, the speaker pro tem, in the Capitol in Tallahassee after speaking in favor of a shorter death appeal process. (Associated Press)(pg. A9)