TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Judd frustrated by stay of execution for deputy's killer

Staff photo by MAURICE CAPOBIANCO

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd speaks next to a timeline of the legal proceedings in Paul Johnson's capital punishment case. The list spilled over onto the floor.

ADVERTISEMENT

By RAY REYES | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 4, 2009

Updated: 11/04/2009 06:13 pm

Related Links

• Judd wants justice
• Stay of execution issued

Paul Beasley Johnson

The death warrant for a man convicted of killing three men, including a Polk County sheriff's deputy, had been signed.

The execution date had been set for today at 6 p.m., and Paul Beasley Johnson was going to die by lethal injection.

But the state Supreme Court issued a stay of execution Oct. 28, delaying Polk Sheriff Grady Judd's wish for justice to be served.

"Just tell me when we're going to hold cold-blooded, premeditated, calculated murderers accountable for slaying the people of the state of Florida," Judd said during a news conference this afternoon.

This development in Johnson's case — along with the multiple appeals he has filed over the years delaying his execution — is weighing on Judd. He wants to know why this case has lingered in the system for more than 28 years and nine months.

Johnson's attorney filed more than nine motions and appeals in the 18 days following Gov. Charlie Crist's Oct. 9 signing of the death warrant.

"The same people who participated in delaying his execution are now filing appeals saying you can't execute him now because he's been on death row too long," Judd said.

Johnson, 60, was convicted for the killing of Polk Deputy Theron Burnham, 27; Winter Haven taxi driver William D. Evans, 55; and Lakeland painter Darrell Ray Beasley, 21, during an all-night crime spree on Jan. 9, 1981.

After smoking marijuana and injecting crystal meth, he told a couple of friends he was going to go out and get more drugs and money even if he had to shoot someone, court records show.

The three men were killed within a five-hour period. Evans was robbed and killed and his taxi set on fire in a citrus grove in Winter Haven. Beasley was robbed and slain after he gave his killer a ride from a Lakeland restaurant, and Burnham was shot to death with his own gun when he confronted the suspect on a desolate road near Lakeland Municipal Airport.

Burnham was a close friend of Judd's.

"He was a dear friend of mine; we went to high school together, we sat next to each other at the police academy," said Judd, noting that staying Johnson's execution delays justice for Burnham's family, and the families of the other victims.

At an Oct. 28 hearing, Johnson's lawyer, Martin McClain, argued the three murder convictions and death sentences should be reversed because newly discovered evidence — notes written by a prosecutor in 1981 — shows a jailhouse snitch had been improperly allowed to testify at trial.

Assistant Deputy Attorney General Candace Sabella said the notes are nothing new and it's too late to bring them up. She also argued other evidence is strong enough to sustain the death sentences without the snitch's testimony.

Judd's office launched an online petition on Sept. 30 asking Gov. Charlie Crist to sign Johnson's death warrant. The campaign on GoPetition.com has garnered more than 2,200 signatures.

Crist signed Johnson's death warrant exactly a week after the sheriff's office posted its online petition, but the governor's office said there was no connection.

In its short order announcing the stay of execution, the state Supreme Court said the stay was being issued to consider the defense's claims of prosecutorial misconduct.

McClain said it's the first time an execution had been ordered for an inmate who has not yet had a habeas corpus hearing in federal court since a 1996 law permitted death warrants without expiration dates.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report. News Channel 8 reporter Natalie Shepherd also contributed to this report. Reporter Ray Reyes can be reached at (813) 259-7920.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT