The Wayne Tompkins Case and Why It is Important

November 14, 2008 on 5:06 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments |

November 18, 2008 

Friends,

As of tonight, Wayne Tompkins is not scheduled for execution. 

Mr. Tompkins’ case is particularly important because of what Florida Supreme Court Justice Harry Anstead referred to in his dissent as the “…unrefuted claim that the State unlawfully manufactured critical evidence against him.”

Read the comments below carefully. They should trouble you. Remember that the other members of the Florida Supreme Court were willing to look away and voted to permit the execution of Mr. Tompkins.

Justice Anstead wrote, in part: “No one disputes that the most critical evidence of defendant’s guilt was presented by a witness commonly referred to as a jailhouse snitch…we now find out from the State itself that this crucial witness‘s evidence was unlawfully tampered with by the State‘s prosecutor.”

“But now, if we are to accept the State‘s most recent interview with this crucial witness, the snitch‘s evidence about the purse was a fabrication, a lie supplied by the State‘s prosecutor. Indeed, if the claim is true we have a state prosecutor who committed a criminal act in tampering with a witness.”

“Surely, at the very least, there is a reasonable possibility this dramatic disclosure would affect the jury‘s evaluation of the State‘s case. For all these reasons, I cannot join in the majority‘s summary rejection of this claim of prosecutorial misconduct, especially under the circumstances of this case where the defendant is under a pending warrant of execution.”

To read the full opinion click on this link: http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/pub_info/summaries/briefs/08/08-2000/Filed_11-07-2008_Opinion.pdf

Sheila Meehan
Chair, TCADP