Death Penalty Opponents Call for Moratorium

By Jackie Hallifax
Associated Press Writer
The Tampa Tribune, published March 6, 2001

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A woman who saw her father murdered joined death
penalty lawyers and investigators calling for a moratorium on capital
punishment.

Suezann Bosler, 38, of Fort Lauderdale, was stabbed five times the day in
December 1986 when her father was fatally stabbed 24 times.

"If I were dead and my father were alive, he would be here speaking," she
said during Monday's rally on the steps of the Old Capitol.

Bosler described her attack with calm deliberation.

She said that after she was stabbed three times in the back, she and her
attacker looked each other in the eye and she saw the knife in his hand,
pulled back for another strike.

"It went into my head twice right here," Bosler said, pointing to her left
temple. "And I went down."

Bosler, a member of a group called Murder Victims Families for
Reconciliation, worked to spare the life of James Bernard Campbell, who was
twice sentenced to death for the murder of Bosler's father, Billy.

Campbell is now sentenced to life in prison.

Bosler said she believed she survived so that she could fight against capital
punishment.

"We need a moratorium on the death penalty," she said. "I don't think we need
any more Frank Lee Smiths."

Smith's name came up many times during Monday's rally.

He died on death row last year after 14 years in a 6-by-9 foot cell. But 11
months later, last December, a DNA test proved that he was innocent of the
murder that landed him on Death Row.

Smith was scheduled to be executed in 1990 for the murder of an 8-year-old
who was raped, beaten and choked in her Fort Lauderdale bedroom in 1985.

A key witness recanted her testimony against Smith a decade ago but the state
disputed her testimony.

Gov. Jeb Bush has appointed a special prosecutor to examine what happened in
Smith's case. But he is against a moratorium on the death penalty,
spokeswoman Katie Baur said Monday.

Such an action would really be a moratorium on justice, Baur said, and would
make no common sense.

Other speakers at the rally included representatives of Amnesty
International, Florida's Catholic bishops and the American Civil Liberties
Union.

Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, a group that supports
post-conviction DNA tests, also spoke. So did David Keaton, a man who was
sent to death row in 1971 and released two years later with all charges
dismissed.

"If the state of Florida had had its way I would not be here today," Keaton
said.