FLORIDA:

Convicted killer Wayne Tompkins escaped his execution scheduled for May 1
when a Tampa judge Wednesday granted him a new sentencing hearing.
Tompkins, a 44-year-old former roofer, was convicted of strangling a
15-year-old girl in 1984 and sentenced to death by then-Hillsborough
Circuit Judge Harry Lee Coe III.

But in a last-minute effort to save him, Tompkins' state-appointed
attorneys raised 2 crucial questions about the legality of his sentence.

First, they said, Coe sentenced Tompkins to the electric chair minutes
after a jury convicted him of 1st-degree murder and recommended that he
be put to death.

That wasn't illegal at the time, but in 1995 the Florida Supreme Court
ruled that a judge could not hand down a sentence without 1st considering
all aggravating and mitigating circumstances.

Tompkins' attorneys also argued that Coe improperly discussed the case
with then-assistant prosecutor Mike Benito without including defense
lawyers. That would be an ex-parte communication, which is illegal.

"When something has an ex-parte taint to it, it's not reliable," said
Tompkins' attorney Martin McClain.

Coe asked Benito to prepare a sentencing order for Tompkins, his
attorneys said.

Benito, now in private practice, denied that he and Coe did anything
improper.

"If you mean did [Coe] ask me to prepare the sentencing order, yes, he
would have called me for that," Benito said. "That is not ex- parte."

Death penalty experts say Hillsborough Circuit Judge Daniel Perry's
decision vacating Tompkins' death sentence is important.

"The significance of this case for Florida is that slowly the courts are
beginning to take the issue of the fairness of due process seriously,"
said Diann Rust-Tiereny, director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project
in Washington.

"While it's not happening quickly," she added, "this is a signal to me
that things are beginning to change."

And Tompkins' attorneys are still fighting. McClain says the prosecution
failed to question 2 witnesses in 1985 who could have exonerated
Tompkins, and he is asking Perry for a new trial. The judge may decide
that Friday.

Tompkins was convicted of strangling Lisa DeCarr with the sash of her
bathrobe. Tompkins was dating DeCarr's mother at the time and lived in
the DeCarr home in east Tampa.

Coe, who left the bench to become Hillsborough County state attorney,
committed suicide last year after an investigation revealed many gambling
debts.

Coincidentally, McClain is challenging another of Coe's death penalty
cases. Rudolph Holton is awaiting execution for the murder in Tampa of
17-year-old Katrina Graddy in 1986. McClain says some of the same issues
exist in the Holton case, and he is seeking a new trial.

(source: Tampa Tribune)