Fla. forbids prosecution of 1964 killing

[struggle4progress]

.. Johnnie Mae Chappell, a housekeeper and mother of 10, was shot in 1964 as she searched for a lost billfold along a Jacksonville road ..

State Attorney William Cervone, appointed in January by Gov. Jeb Bush to review the case, wrote in a letter to the governor that the three men not convicted cannot be charged again because of a state's "speedy trial" rule ..

Chappell, who was not involved in the demonstrations or riots, was on her way home from work when she was shot. The suspects initially told police they were looking for a black person to shoot.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Chappell_Slaying.html

[Miss Chybil]

1. Don't you have to be arrested before the "speedy trial" thing kicks in?

Arrested for the crime the trial would refer to? What gives?

[struggle4progress]

5. I'd guess the point of the rule is that the state shouldn't leave anybody

under unresolved pending charges indefinitely, rather than that having been charged with charges then dropped should prevent refiling charges later.

See link: in this case, several were charged but charges dropped long ago.

Suspect this is Rs pandering to wingnut base ...

[Kiouni]

2. that's pretty

messed up but it is odd that it took 42 years for this to be reviewed.

[Richard Steele]

6. Given the slant of this "review", the 42 year delay is not so surprising.

Business as usual, same as it ever was. Nothing to see here.

And welcome to DU, Kiouni!

[Divernan]

11. A former deputy requested a new investigation.

Hi, welcome to DU!
Use the link on the original post to read the entire article and you'll see how this matter came back to light after all these years. However, there is no relevant detail on who this deputy was or what prompted him (I would guess, his conscience) to request the case be reopened. However, his request would not have been granted had he not presented a convincing argument relative to the investigation or lack thereof all those years ago.

[Richard Steele]

3. State Attorney William Cervone is either a racist or a MORON...

...and I'm willing to entertain arguements that he is BOTH.

His written interpretation of this aspect of our laws is,
to put it mildly, ridiculous.

The "speedy trial" clause doesn't mean that, and it never did.
And any first-year law student knows that.

[NaturalHigh]

4. They need to look back to...

the US Supreme Court case that allowed Jeffrey MacDonald to be tried for the murders of his wife and daughters. The "Speedy Trial" argument was used then and blown out of the water. If charges are not pending and the suspect is not in custody, the defendant doesn't have a Sixth Amendment argument.

[struggle4progress]

7. I agree.

And ya got the point out first! :)

[sandnsea]

12. state law, see #10

Looks like it was passed specifically to let some of these racist criminals off the hook. Doesn't look like they're claiming a US constitutional violation. Also, they're saying it only applies to murder and manslaughter isn't a murder charge. Even though they were "looking to kill a black person", but I bet they didn't say "black person" back in 1969. The whole thing stinks, they should have the guts to try the case and overturn that stupid law.

[HopeFor2006]

8. There is no statute of limitation in a murder case

[LostinVA]

14. That's what I was thinking...

[Maddy McCall]

9. Thank god that Mississippi has a Democratic Attorney General.

Our state has, over the past 5 or 10 years and through two Democratic Attorneys General, tried several whte men for the murders of civil rights workers.

Most recent is Edgar Killen, who's in the state pen awaiting his appeal.

[Divernan]

10. Many strange legal goings on in Florida in 1971

I'd like to see columns by Carl Hiaisen or Dave Barry commenting on this whole matter. First of all, the article details that this "speedy trial" rule stipulated that "anyone taken into custody before Sept. 27, 1971 - when the rule took effect - had to go on trial before Nov. 1, 1971."

This is an insane law, which surely resulted in the majority of accused criminals held in custody (which included both those too impoverished to make bail and those too dangerous to be granted bail) getting off scot free if the DAs couldn't get all their evidence together AND get a court date within 2 months and 1 week. In other words, there must have been very many dangerous criminals released who had been charged with crimes for which the statute of limitations had not yet even expired. We're talking rapists, murderers, child abusers, spouse beaters, armed robbers - every criminal held in custody in the state as of Sept. 27, 1971. What the hell was behind this bizarre law? One thought that comes to mind is some very well connected KKKers or their relatives may have been awaiting trial.

In every county in the state, the DAs would have been desperately triaging their cases to bring the most deadly of their suspects to trial. It must have been a holiday of plea bargaining for thousands of criminals. As to this case,
"Investigators initially determined the shots were fired from a car carrying four white men, who were charged with first-degree murder.But charges against Elmer Kato, Wayne Chessman and James Davis were dropped. The fourth man, J.W. Rich, confessed but said the gun went off accidentally. He was convicted of manslaughter and served three years in prison."

Finally, "It was unclear where Kato, Chessman, Davis and Rich were living. There were no phone listings for any of the men in the Jacksonville area." Rich is protected from further prosecution by the double jeopardy rule. One or more of the remaining three men is still alive and afraid,even with the difficulties of gathering evidence after all these years, that he/they could be found guilty. A former sheriff's deputy asked that the case be reopened, and then the state says no new evidence can be found. Well there was SOME reason that deputy asked for the case to be reopened, or it wouldn't have been. And since the charges had been dropped as to the other three, without a trial, double jeopardy did not attach, and the state didn't NEED any NEW evidence to proceed.

"Chappell (the victim's son) said his lawyers planned to take the case to federal prosecutors and were considering a lawsuit. The shooting happened during race riots in downtown Jacksonville when black protesters staged demonstrations at hotels and restaurants for equal rights."

On edit: John Grisham should write a non-fiction book about this case!

[sam sarrha]

13. must have been 3 white republicans..