Its been brought to my attention that this article got an error
they talk about that two of the guns where found and one of them was identified as the murder weapon.
the true fact is that they could NOT connect the riffle to this murder..
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Wednesday, February 25, 1998
Story last updated at 10:46 p.m. on Tuesday, February 24, 1998
Lawyer: Confession came after beating
By Jim Saunders
Times-Union staff writer
TALLAHASSEE - A month before Leo Jones is scheduled to die in the electric chair, his attorney asked the Florida Supreme Court yesterday
to order a new trial in the 1981 slaying of a Jacksonville police officer. Jones' attorney, Martin McClain, said a new trial is needed because a
retired Jacksonville police officer has offered evidence that Jones was beaten before he confessed to the shooting of Officer Thomas Szafranski.
Jones was convicted of murder after he was found in a nearby apartment with two rifles, one containing his fingerprints. One of the rifles matched
The kind used to kill Szafranski. McClain said yesterday that the retired officer, Cleveland Smith, has indicated that police targeted Jones a week
or two before the shooting because of an earlier altercation with an officer.
''Within the police department, there was a desire to get him,'' McClain said.
But Assistant Attorney General Curtis French said Jones was injured when he resisted arrest and was not beaten in the hours before he confessed.
French also tried to raise doubts about the testimony of Smith, who came forward last year.
''I think the fact he waited 16 years certainly says something about his credibility,'' French said.
The Supreme Court did not rule yesterday on the arguments, which were an appeal of a circuit judge's ruling in December against Jones.
If justices don't overturn the conviction, Jones is scheduled to be executedMarch 24. The Jones case has long frustrated police and
members of Szafranski's family because of the length of appeals. But the case also has drawn statewide attention during the past year,
as Jones' attorneys have unsuccessfully used it to fight the state's use of the electric chair.
The attorneys argue the chair violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
But the Supreme Court narrowly upheld the use of the chair in October, and a federal judge ruled against Jones and other Death Row
inmates last week. If Jones goes to the electric chair next month, he would be the first Florida inmate put to death
since flames shot out during an execution last March. That fiery execution helped lead to Jones' legal challenges against the chair.
Szafranski was killed in May 1981 as he drove his patrol car near North Davis and Sixth streets north of downtown.
McClain argued yesterday that Jones confessed to the slaying because he feared he would be killed.
The attorney pointed to Smith, who said he heard another officer talk about beating someone in the apartment the night of the arrest.
Also, McClain said that police, during a roll call a week or two before the shooting, had said they were going to ''get'' Jones.
While McClain focused his arguments on the beating issue, he also touched on statements by about a dozen people that another man, Glenn Schofield,
Might have killed Szafranski. Those people included prison inmates who said Schofield had bragged about the killing.
Retired Circuit Judge Clarence Johnson Jr. ruled in December that there wasn't credible evidence that someone else killed Szafranski. But yesterday,
Supreme Court justices asked several questions about the possibility.