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Undisclosed evidence may free man from death row

The state Supreme Court calls evidence never given to the defense "unsettling." A new trial is ordered.

By CHRIS TISCH
Published March 25, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - More than 20 years ago, a jury took only about an hour to convict James Floyd of murdering an 86-year-old woman in her home. They took another hour to send him to death row.

The evidence seemed compelling. Police caught Floyd cashing the victim's stolen checks. A bloodied sock, a jailhouse snitch, tire tracks and some hairs also were presented at trial.

But on Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court tossed out Floyd's conviction and death sentence because prosecutors didn't share other important evidence with defense attorneys. The ruling called the new evidence "unsettling."

That evidence included statements from a neighbor who claimed to see two other men entering the old woman's St. Petersburg house about the time of her death, as well as inconsistent reports from detectives and information about how the snitch tried to leverage his testimony for a lighter sentence on his own charges.

"It's outrageous. It's important evidence," said Pam Izakowitz, Floyd's Tampa attorney. "It could exonerate Floyd. He didn't kill her."

Prosecutors are required to provide defense attorneys with copies of all documents and evidence that could be material to a case. It was unclear Thursday why the information was not provided to the defense.

Doug Crow, one of Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe's top assistants, said the withholding of evidence most likely was an honest mistake.

"I've been here 30 years, and our office has never operated that way," Crow said.

McCabe said he didn't know if the state would bring Floyd to trial again.

The attorney who prosecuted Floyd at trial, Joseph Episcopo, also was the attorney who prosecuted Rudolph Holton, who was released from prison in 2003 after 16 years on death row for a murder he didn't commit.

Episcopo, who is now in private practice in Tampa, was in New York on Thursday taping segments for Court TV and CNN, an assistant said. He could not be reached for comment.

Floyd's wife, Hannah, who married Floyd while he was on death row, said she cried for an hour after hearing the news Thursday morning.

"I knew it was going to happen," she said.

Martin McClain, a lawyer for Floyd, said he didn't think Floyd would be convicted again.

"I'm convinced that if they take it back to trial they cannot get a conviction, based on what the neighbor lady saw," said McClain, a veteran lawyer for death row inmates.

St. Petersburg police arrested Floyd for the Jan. 16, 1984, murder of Annie Bar Anderson, who was known in her St. Petersburg neighborhood as the "Butterfly Lady." She raised Monarch butterflies on her back porch.

Anderson had been stabbed 11 times in the stomach and once in the heart.

Detectives developed Floyd, then 23, as a suspect when he tried to cash one of Anderson's stolen checks. Floyd gave conflicting statements at first and provided a false alibi. A sock spattered with blood - the same type as Anderson's - was found in Floyd's jacket pocket.

Several hairs also were found on Anderson's bed. This was before the days of DNA testing, so all forensic experts could tell was that the hairs belonged to a black person. Floyd is black, Anderson white.

Tire tracks found on a concrete slab in back of Anderson's home also were "similar" to the tires on Floyd's motorcycle, police said.

Floyd, who worked as a custodian for a local church, told police he had found Anderson's checks in a trash bin in an alley. He admitted forging them, but denied killing Anderson.

After Floyd's arrest, a fellow inmate said Floyd told him that he had stabbed a white woman. The snitch, a white man, admitted in court that he didn't like black people.

The prosecution's theory was that Floyd sneaked into the house through a back door, then went up to Anderson's bedroom. He attacked Anderson after she discovered him inside, they said.

After the jury convicted Floyd, Anderson's daughter, a church missionary, begged a judge to spare Floyd from death row. But Judge Philip A. Federico sentenced him to die.

Two years later, the Florida Supreme Court set aside the death sentence because Federico gave jurors confusing instructions. A second jury recommended the death penalty and a new judge, Richard Luce, sent Floyd back to death row.

Anderson's family members could not be reached Thursday.

In 1994, new defense attorneys got the full case file - and found the withheld evidence.

Attorneys asked Luce for a hearing, but he refused. The Florida Supreme Court later ordered Luce to hold one. Attorneys presented the new evidence and asked Luce for a new trial. He refused. Years ticked by.

The attorneys took the case to the Florida Supreme Court, which ordered a new trial for Floyd on Thursday.

"There is little dispute that the state possessed exculpatory evidence that it failed to provide to Floyd," states the ruling.

Perhaps the most important evidence was the statement of a neighbor, Tina Glenn, who said she saw two men pull up to Anderson's house in a car at about the time she was killed. Glenn said the two men strode up to the house and knocked on the door and went inside.

Glenn said it sounded as if they were ransacking the home. About a half-hour later, she heard the door slam and saw the men running to the car, "looking around suspiciously." They sped off.

A review of the records also found that letters written by the snitch, in which he seeks a deal in exchange for his testimony, were not shared with the defense.

Nor were police reports that are inconsistent in their description of the crime scene and that conflict with evidence presented at trial.

The most intriguing: Though police said they found a black person's hairs in Anderson's bedspread and sheet, one police report says the bed was made.

"The assailant is not likely to leave a hair inside a made bed while attacking the victim," McClain said. "It just doesn't make any sense."

Sworn statements from a woman who pointed to another suspect also were left out. So were inconsistent reports about pry marks that were found on Anderson's windows. So were polygraph results that showed a witness was deceptive.

The court found fault with other evidence.

The sock? It was stained with Type O blood, which is the blood type of about 45 percent of the American population.

The tire tracks? They were similar to the treads of Japanese motorcycles that were very popular in 1984.

"It is clear that the case against the defendant was not among the strongest we have encountered," the ruling states, later adding: "After collectively examining the evidence suppressed by the state, it is apparent that it could have provided a basis for reasonable doubt in the minds of some jurors.

"We conclude that our confidence in the defendant's murder conviction has clearly been shaken by the evidence that the state suppressed in this case."

Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report, which includes information from the Associated Press.

[Last modified March 25, 2005, 01:00:17]