Ma'at - Goddess of Truth & Justice 
Join Date: October 29, 2001
Location: North Carolina
Age: 61
Posts: 3,257
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Then again, Eisen/Dram, there is just the slightest possibility that King was convicted and sentenced on more than just his skin color.
http://www.oranous.com/florida/AmosKing/thought.htm
Quote:
Court extends killer's long wait for death
A man in his third decade on death row for a Tarpon Springs murder is spared a day before execution.
By KATHERINE GAZELLA, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 24, 2002 Related video
(56k | High-Speed)
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Even now, when the victim's sister sees a pleasing crochet pattern, she thinks: "Tillie would like that."
One of the killer's other victims, a corrections officer who was stabbed 24 times, still has nightmares about the night he nearly died.
And a juror has wondered how the man who did it all -- who killed a Tarpon Springs woman and nearly killed the corrections officer -- could still be alive, despite his death sentence. She never forgot the testimony about knives and knitting needles.
After a quarter-century on death row, convicted killer Amos Lee King Jr.'s life may have been extended one more time Wednesday. The U.S. Supreme Court granted
him a reprieve, little more than 24 hours before the execution that was scheduled for today at 6 p.m.
He previously survived two death warrants for the 1977 rape and murder of Natalie "Tillie" Brady, a Tarpon Springs widow who lived near the work-release center King escaped from.
"There's a part of me that's smiling, that's relieved," King, 47, said after hearing the news Wednesday. "I was getting ready to go the other way. I made funeral arrangements."
One of Mrs. Brady's two surviving sisters said she was frustrated by the possibility of yet another delay.
"All you can say is, "once again,' " said Marie Williams of St. Petersburg. "I think it's just a big farce. It's a joke. The evidence is there."
King has spent more time on death row than anyone else from Pinellas County, and is the 11th longest serving death row inmate. His life has been extended by appeals and a court's concern that one of his lawyers did a bad job. His death sentence once was overturned but later reinstated.
Gov. Jeb Bush signed King's death warrant in November, one of 13 he has signed since taking office. King previously survived death warrants signed by Gov. Bob Graham in 1981 and Gov. Bob Martinez in 1988, and once came within a week of execution.
King's latest appeals have focused on two main issues. His attorneys say that key evidence that could be used for DNA testing to exonerate King was lost by the Pinellas Medical Examiner's Office years ago. Attorneys for the state said a great deal of other evidence linked King to the crime.
Wednesday's U.S. Supreme Court stay was open-ended and could be lifted at any time, allowing King to be executed. A lawyer for the state, Carolyn Snurkowski, said the state will not seek to dissolve the order.
The court's basis for the delay -- a review a part of Arizona's death penalty law that is similar to Florida's -- could affect countless more Florida death row cases.
The reprieve granted Wednesday was based on King's argument that the jury's recommendation of death in his case was unconstitutional. At the time, the maximum sentence for first-degree murder was life, unless there were aggravating factors such as another felony that was committed at the same time as the murder and whether the convicted killer was in prison at the time of the murder. The jury in King's case had to review those factors but did not have to say which ones caused them to recommend a death senten
ce.
Based on an earlier Supreme Court decision, King's attorneys said, it was unconstitutional for the jury to make a recommendation without citing specific aggravating factors. Florida juries recommend sentences in capital cases, but the judge actually decides if a convicted murderer should receive the death sentence.
King's 1977 crime -- coming a year after the opening of the work release center -- shocked the little north Pinellas community. But it drew notoriety for another reason: The trial is believed to be the first in Florida to allow cameras in the courtroom.
Mrs. Brady lived in her secluded house for many years before the Tarpon Springs Community Correctional Center was built 200 yards away.
The oldest of 10 children, she was born Natalie Lysek and was raised in Hudson. She and a brother operated a restaurant on Tarpon Avenue and she worked at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Tarpon Springs.
On the night of March 17, 1977, she played bingo. It was St. Patrick's Day.
King was beaten as a child and had a history of robbery and grand theft, as well as problems with alcohol and drugs. In 1977, he was serving time at the Tarpon Springs correctional facility for a parole violation. On St. Patrick's Day, he washed dishes at his work-release job at the Clearwater restaurant Nellie Kelly's.
Early the next morning, corrections officer James "Dan" McDonough saw that King's bed was empty. He searched the grounds and saw King, who had blood on his white pants. King pulled a knife on him and stabbed McDonough 24 times.
McDonough lost so much blood that he nearly died. King acknowledged Wednesday that he stabbed McDonough but said the incident was not as bad as the guard made it out.
McDonough later would use a lesson from the 40-minute fight with King when he taught at the police academy.
"I told them, "No matter how much it hurts, you cannot quit,' " he said this week.
That night, McDonough and an inmate notified police, who saw that Mrs. Brady's house was on fire. Firefighters found her lying dead in the back doorway of the burning house. She had been raped, stabbed and choked.
"It was more than brutal," retired Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge John S. "Jack" Andrews said recently. Andrews presided over King's trial in 1977.
King fled after the fight with McDonough, but called police the next day to surrender. He says he never escaped that night until after the encounter with McDonough a
nd that someone else must be responsible for Mrs. Brady's death. If anything, he says, he should have been charged with escape and aggravated assault on the guard.
"I'm guilty of that, but that's all I'm guilty of," he said Wednesday.
Medical reports and testimony at the July 1977 trial linked a knife from Mrs. Brady's kitchen to the stabbing of McDonough. Tests showed that Mrs. Brady was raped by a man whose blood type matched King's. A tear in her vaginal wall could have been caused by the insertion of knitting needles. A bloodstained, broken knitting needle was found outside Mrs. Brady's home.
The jury convicted King and recommended a death sentence. Andrews followed the recommendation.
McDonough, the former corrections officer, had planned to attend the execution today, as did two of Mrs. Brady's nieces.
"I've always wanted to be in on it," said McDonough, now a funeral home director in Brooksville. "He's a very dangerous man. . . . I wanted some closure to this."
Mrs. Williams and Eva Lysek, Mrs. Brady's two sisters who are both in their 70s, had decided not to go. Ms. Lysek, who lives in Pinellas County, still regularly puts flowers on her sister's grave on holidays.
King woke up Wednesday prepared to spend only two more days alive. He meditated and spoke with his Buddhist spiritual adviser, and had ordered his last meal of chicken and rice, salad with feta cheese, chocolate cheesecake and pecans. He said he would like to meet with Mrs. Brady's family so he could tell them he is innocent.
He was asked if he thought he might be a free man again.
"I don't know," he said. "I'd kind of like to hope."
- Times researchers Caryn Baird and Mary Mellstrom contributed to this report.
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I don't know about others, but I did find some of these points interesting.
1) Amos King DID receive a Stay of Execution in January of this year. The primary point of contention at THAT time was NOT lack of DNA testing (although his lawyers did claim key evidence for the testing had been lost). Rather, they were arguing against the manner in which the Death Sentence was handed down. {side note on DNA evidence. While I know some will consider the "loss of evidence" a "convenient" excuse...keep in mind that the murder occurred in 1977, before DNA testing even existed as we know it today. Medical tests were done on the physical evidence available}
2) King admits to stabbing the guard (McDonough) but claims that the guard's injuries weren't as bad as he claims. My question is, how did McDonough fool the doctors into thinking he really had 24 stab wounds when the real number was far less (according to King)? And how did he fake losing so much blood that he nearly died? Doctors are usually pretty smart and these factors are generally hard to manipulate.
3) Medical evidence and testimony linked the knife used on the guard to the kitchen of Natalie Brady (the woman who was raped and killed). Her house was only 200 yards away from the correctional facility where Amos King was interred. Also, the guard noted there was blood on King's white pants when he found him. This was before King's admitted knife attack on the guard. I wonder where that blood came from??
4) Jeb Bush is the third governor to sign the Order of Execution against Amos King. The first order was signed by Gov. Bob Graham in 1981 and the second was signed by Gov. Bob Martinez in 1988.
5) Finally, if Florida really is so keen to kill King merely because he's black, then why have they been dragging their feet for 25 years? They have him in prison already. Why did these bloodthirsty Governors keep issueing Stays of Executions after they had already signed the Order for Execution?
Just a few other "mitigating factors" to think about. 
[ 12-01-2002, 08:28 AM: Message edited by: Cerek the Barbaric ]
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12-01-2002, 06:15 AM
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