BEFORE THE GOVERNOR
OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA
In re
JAMES ADAMS
APPLICATION FOR EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY
RICHARD L. JORANDBY
Public Defender
15th Judicial Circuit of Florida
224 Datura Street, 13th Floor
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
CRAIG S. BARNARD
Chief Assistant Public Defender
RICHARD H. BURR, III
Of Counsel
RICHARD B. GREENE
Assistant Public Defender
MICHAEL A. MELLO
Assistant Public Defender
Counsel for Mr. Adams
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INtLOduction ceeecscccecsnccccee reese eeeseesensecees
Racial Prejudice and Its Fruits
Have Brought James Adams to the
Brink Of BxeCution ..-eeseeeesereesere
A. The Convictions in Tennessee
in 1955 and 1957 .
B, The 1962 Rape Conviction ....eeeeeees
C. The Circumstances Surrounding Mr. Adams"
Escape From the Tennessee Prison System ....+-
D. The Charge and Conviction of First-degree
Murder in St. Lucie County ceeesseeeeeseeereee
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Conclusion
The Evidence Of Record ...-eeeeeeesseeere
Doubt About Guilt in the Record ..
,Doubt About Guilt Multiplied ......eeeeee
Race Discrimination Culminated:
Mr. Adams' Death Sentence eeeeeeeevseeeee
Page
1
4
10
12
13
16
20
26
28
Introduction
Whether to spare the life of James Adams is a question which
you have faced before and have answered. But when you pre-
viously answered that question, you did not have critical
information about James Adams or about the circumstances sur~
rounding his conviction for first-degree murder in St. Lucie
County which we are now able to present to you. On the basis of
what we will now present to you, therefore, we ask that you
consider anew whether to spare the life of James Adams.
Some of the facts which are important to this new clemency
application are already familiar to you. James Adams is a black
man, who is forty-six years old, who was one of fourteen children
born into the family of black sharecroppers in the 1930s in rural
West Tennessee. He grew up desperately poor, under conditions
which have been well documented by historians and with which we
are now all familiar. Mr. Adams was convicted of the rape of a
white woman in 1962 and received a ninety-nine year prison
sentence for this conviction. At the time of the first clemency,
we were able to present some questions to you respecting the
fairness of this conviction because we knew Mr. Adams had been
convicted by an all-white jury and had been shackled throughout
his trial. However, at that time, we had not been able to locate
the record of his trial, and so we weee: unable to present a very
clear picture to you about that trial. After serving ten years
of that ninety-nine year sentence, Mr. Adams escaped from the
Tennessee prison system. As you know, Mr. Adams' escape was not
violent. He was a trustee working at a correctional facility for
teenage girls at the time, and he simply drove away in the
state-owned truck with which he had been permitted to run errands
in his job.
Finally, you were previously presented with facts demon-
strating that the only facially legitimate prior conviction of
Mr. Adams was the rape conviction. Some seven years before the
rape conviction, Mr. Adams had been convicted of assault and
battery and sentenced to several months' confinement in the
Tipton County (Tennessee) penal farm. During that period of
incarceration, Mr. Adams escaped and was thereafter charged with
escape but had the escape charge dismissed before going to trial.
A number of months later in 1957, Mr. Adams was convicted of
larceny. This crime, involving the theft of a pig, was committed
by Mr. Adams in order to enable his family to eat. As with the
assault and battery charge, Mr. Adams was convicted and sentenced
to several months confinement in the Tipton County penal farm. As
previously demonstrated to you, however, neither of these two
convictions preceding the rape conviction, was constitutionally
imposed. Mr. Adams was not provided counsel for these con-
victions, and the convictions were thus null and void under
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963)
Since that first clemency application, we have learned
important new facts about Mr. Adams and about the crime for which
he was convicted in St. Lucie County. The presentation of these
facts is the primary purpose of the remaining portions of this
clemency application. From the very beginning, however, we want
you to understand the context in which these facts are presented.
[we believe, as strongly as human beings can believe, that the
life of James Adams is in your hands today solely because he is a
poor black southerner } woven into the very fabric of James
Adams' life is the unfair, devastating affect of racial pre-
judice. In the intervening years since you first considered
clemency for James Adams in November, 1979, we have discovered
that|{the outcome of Mr. Adams' every involvement in the criminal
justice system since 1955 has been influenced by his race or by
the race of the victims of his alleged crines.| Because each
subsequent involvement with the criminal justice system has taken
inte account his prior involvement, the racial prejudice asso-
ciated with his earlier involvements has continued to haunt him
and has compounded the racial prejudice at work in his subsequent
involvements in the criminal justice system. What is most
devastating about the effects of racial prejudice in the life of
James Adams is that racial prejudice has criminalized him. Where
-2-
there has been genuine doubt about his guilt of an offense,
racial prejudice has overcome that doubt. It happened in
Tennessee and it happened here in St. Lucie County.
The grant of clemency to James Adams cannot undo these
things. It cannot erase the ten years that he spent in Ten-
nessee's prison system; it cannot erase the ten years he has been
on death row in Florida's prison system, But the grant of
clemency can do that which the criminal justice system has always
failed to do for James Adams.l The grant of clemency can say no
to racial prejudice. It can say no to a centuries-long history
of the incarceration and execution of black people because of
their race and not because of their deeds. The grant of cle-
mency, in short, can be a living example that we have genuinely
turned our backs on racism and that we will no longer accept or
accede to the spoils of racism.
Racial Prejudice and Its Fruits Have Brought James Adams to
the Brink of Execution
From his first brush with the criminal justice system in
Tennessee in 1955 through his conviction for first-degree murder
in St. Lucie County, Florida in 1974, Mr. Adams has been crim-
inalized, victimized, and discriminated against by the system,
He has been convicted in wholly unreliable proceedings in which
he was not represented by a lawyer, he has been brutalized in
prisons, and he has been convicted despite the existence of
1 «Indeed only this clemency proceeding can take into account
most of ¢ facts presented to you. As you will note, many of
the facts discussed herein could and should have been pre—
sented at trial. However, the courts are inclined to treat
the non-presentation of evidence as an appropriate strategy
decision for a lawyer and have not generally held counsel
ineffective for failing to present evidence. This was the
case here. Moreover, there is no post-trial legal remedy to
account for the cumulative effect of facts which demonstrates
genuine doubt about guilt. Florida's error coram nobis
procedure requires that such facts be undiscoverable before
trial and that they conclusively prevent the verdict. Facts
can obviously suggest enough doubt about guilt to persuade a
governor to avoid an execution without meeting these stan-
dards. Such facts are what we present to you today.
>
{This case has thus fallen through the cracks of the legal
system. Only you, through your unique power to assure that
justice is done in situations just like this, can compensate
for the injustice which has already been imposed and avoid the
injustice which looms ahead.
-3-
reasonable doubt where he has been accused of serious violent
crimes against white people. An examination of Mr. Adams'
thirty-year history of involvement with the criminal justice
system strikingly reveals these common threads.
A. The Convictions in Tennessee in 1955 and 1957
Mr. Adams' first encounter with the criminal justice system
was apparently the result of a conviction for assault and battery
in 1955. The only record we have found of that conviction is an
indictment for Mr. Adams' escape from the Tipton County penal
farm in September 1955, "where he was confined after being
convicted of the crime of assault and battery in the Court of
General Sessions of [Tipton] County." Although indicted for
escape, that charge was dismissed upon payment of costs on March
7, 1956. See Appendix A.?
Mr. Adams' second conviction followed on March 6, 1957 when
he was convicted of petit larceny. Appendix A. The subject of
tted by Mr. Adams and his brother, Jimmy Lee,
this larceny commi
was a pig. The larceny was committed at a time when the Adams
family had no food and the pig was stolen to enable the family to
eat. See Appendix B. Mr. Adams was sentenced to the Tipton
County penal farm for a period of 11 months and 29 days as a
result of this conviction for petit larceny. Appendix A.
On the basis of the investigation of these offenses con-
ducted by Bruce M. Wilkinson, former assistant public defender in
St. Lucie County who represented Mr. Adams in the first clemency
proceeding, we know that Mr. Adams was not provided counsel in
connection with either of these convictions. While he was
unable to find a record of the 1955 conviction to confirm
absolutely whether it was uncounseled, Mr. Wilkinson did de-
termine from the face of the record of the 1957 conviction that
no counsel had been provided. See Appendix C. That the first
conyiction was probably uncounseled as well was confirmed when
Mr. Wilkinson determined "that the law in Tennessee during the
ete
2 submitted along with this clemency application, are a number
of appendices. These appendices are referred to by letter and
page number within the appendix where appropriate.
period of time that I am talking about, '55 and '56, was similar
to the Florida law, in that there was only appointed counsel in a
capital case." Appendix C at page 19. Accordingly, pursuant to
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) and Argersinger v.
Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25 (1972), these convictions were void.
In connection with the incarceration for the petit larceny
conviction, Mr. Adams suffered severe brutality at the hands of a
jailer. As recounted by Dr. Dorothy Lewis, a psychiatrist from
New York University who recently evaluated Mr. Adams, that
brutality has had lifelong consequences for him:
At about age 17, Mr. Adams was knocked un-
conscioys with a bat by a guard at a penal farm
where he had been sent for a relatively minor
offense. He bears, to this date, an inden-
tation in the left occipital region where he
received this blow. He was knocked unconscious
and remained unconscious for an unknown period
of time following this severe blow. At
approximately this time, he was also smacked in
the face by a sheriff and apparently knocked to
the ground hitting his head. He awakened to
find himself on a floor near a stove. Sub~
sequent to these episodes, Mr. Adams began to
experience dizzy spells and blackouts. His most
frightening blackouts occurred when he would be
driving a car. Mr. Adams has not been a
drinker of very much alcohol and these black-
outs that he describes while driving were
unrelated to any ingestion of any liquor.
During one of these episodes, he lost conscious
and swerved his car directly in front of an
oncoming truck. When he suddenly came to his
senses and stopped, the truck driver came out
with a gun and threatened him and asked him why
he had done what he did. Mr. Adams has never
had any understanding of why these kinds of
episodes occurred.... Subsequent to. his head
injuries, he has also experienced episodes when
he has been told he did something or said
something for which his memory is totally
absent. These are not necessarily aggressive
acts. For example, he has been told that he
gave money to someone or that he borrowed money
from somebody and he has had no recollection of
these incidents although they occurred in the
immediate past. He also is aware that he can
become angry and he has an auralike experience
for days prior to an episode when he feels
extremely angry.... He also has had episodes
when he has not understood what people were
talking about and then felt embarassed and
would hit his head hard against the wall. Mr.
3 Adams has experienced macropsia in that he has
. had the experience of looking at a wall and
having it appear to come closer to him.... He
has had episodes of blurred vision.... Mr.
Adams has had no episodes of deja vu. He has
however had a clear episode of jamais vu. That
is, on one occasion, when returning to the
town, to his home in the town in which he lived
after visiting another place briefly, he became
totally disoriented and, according to him, took
several hours) until he dfigare out where
he was. These episodes of macropsia, jamais
vu, episodic blurring of vision, dizziness and
blackouts are often seen in individuals with
psychomotor seizures.
Appendix D. On the basis of these experiences, Dr. Lewis found
that "[i]t is very likely that Mr. Adams ... suffers from a
psychomotor seizure disorder... "Id,
B. The 1962 Rape Conviction
On October 30, 1962, Mr. Adams was convicted of rape and
sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison by the Circuit Court of
Dyer County, Tennessee. At the time of Mr. Adams' first clemency
application, counsel for Mr. Adams had been unable to locate the
trial transcript or post-conviction record of that conviction.
See Appendix BE. A second effort was made to find those documents
in December, 1983 and they were finally located in the Federal
Archives in Atlanta, Georgia, where they had been incorporated in
a federal habeas corpus proceeding brought by Mr. Adams in the
mid-1960s. Id. A review of these records conclusively demon-
strates that this conviction was constitutionally defective and
fundamentally unfair because of the prevailing practices and
atmosphere of race discrimination in Dyer County at that period
of time.
Mr. Adams’ rape conviction was constitutionally defective
because black people were systematically excluded from jury
service in his trial and, generally in the several-year period
preceding his trial. The exclusion of black people was dramatic.
At the time of Mr. Adams' trial, the qualifications for jurors in
Tennessee were derived from two provisions of the Tennessee Code.
Section 22-101 provided that
felvery person of the age of twenty-one (21)
years, being a citizen of the United States,
and a resident of the State of Tennessee, and
of the County in which he or she may be
summoned for jury service for a period of
twelve (12) months next preceding the date of
such summons, is legally qualified to act as a
ft grand or petit juror, if not otherwise in-
competent under the express provisions of the
Code.
Section 22-228 provided as additional qualifications that jurors
be “upright and intelligent persons known for their integrity,
fair character and sound judgment...." In 1960, the census
figures for Dyer County, Tennessee, the county in which Mr. Adams
was convicted in 1962, revealed a total population of 29,537. Of
this total population, 4,359 or 14.8% were black people. See
Appendix F (1960 Census Tables), at 44-66, 44-87. With respect
to the population twenty-one years of age or older, 13.7% (2456
out of 17,940) were black. Id. at 44-87, With respect to that
portion of the population which, in addition, met the residency
requirement of T.C.A. §22-101, 14.2% (2218 out of 15,1581) were
black. Id. accordingly, (14.2 of the persons objectively
qualified to serve as jurors in Dyer County in 1960 were black.
At the time of Mr. Adams’ trial, Section 22-228 of the
Tennessee Code required the jury commissioners of each county to
compose a list of citizens to serve as the jurors in the Circuit
and Criminal Courts of such county for two-year intervals. The
jury list was to be composed "from the tax records and the
permanent registration records of the County, or other available
and reliable sources...." 1.C.A. §22-228. In Dyer County, for
several years preceding and following Mr. Adams' trial, the jury
commissioners utilized two methods for composing the jury list.
First, the commissioners relied on what has come to be known as
the "key man" system. By use of this system, the jury com-
missioners composed the jury list on the basis of people known to
them. Second, the jury commissioners used the records of
customers served by the local public utilities companies in Dyer
County. Through a combination of these two methods, a jury list
of five hundred persons was composed for each two-year period.
See generally the Affidavit of Bernice A. Dennis Wilber, Appendix
He
} Examination of the two jury lists covering the period from
October, 1959 through October, 1964 (Appendix G) reveals the
following. with respect to the five-hundred-person jury list
utilized during the period from October, 1959 to June, 1962, only
persons are known to have been black. Of the remaining four
hundred ninety-six persons on the list, four hundred eighty-eight
are known to have been white. With respect to the jury list in
effect from June, 1962 through October, 1964 --which is the list
from which the jurors were chosen for Mr. Adams' trial in late
October, 1962 -~ no persons are known to have been black. Of the
four hundred ninety persons whose race can be identified, all
four hundred ninety persons are known to have been white.
Accordingly, with respect to the jurors whose race can now be
established, black people were totally excluded from jury service
in Dyer County, Tennessee before, during, and after Mr. Adams'
trial. Moreover, even if all of the persons whose race cannot
now be determined were assumed to be black people, only 2% of the
persons on the jury lists for these five years were black. (The
foregoing statistics are documented in Appendices H and I.)
Under the applicable principles of the sixth amendment's
guarantee of trial by an impartial jury, see Duren v. Missouri,
439 U.S. 357 (1979), as well as under the Equal Protection Clause
of the fourteenth amendment, see Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S.
42 (1977), these practices and the statistical results of these
practices violated Mr. Adams' right, well established at that
time, not to have black people systematically excluded from his
jury.
within the context of his rape trial, the systematic
exclusion of black people also meant that Mr. Adams was fund-
amentally deprived of a fair trial. There is stark evidence that
the integrity of the fact-finding process in Mr. Adams' trial was
severely undermined by the systematic exclusion of black people
from his jury. Race discrimination was.a pervasive factor in his
trial. He was a black man charged with the rape of a white woman
at a time and in a place where that charge meant almost certain
conviction. In her testimony, the victim of the alleged rape
testified that she told her husband “it was a Nigger" who raped
her}. (Rape Trial Transcript, hereafter "RT," at 28, included as
Appendix J to the clemency application.) This epithet was
frequently repeated throughout the trial. Despite the admission
by the prosecutrix that she repeatedly “lost consciousness"
during the incident -- in which she was physically then sexually
assaulted in her house by a person who came into her house
without her knowledge (RT 10, 11, 13-14, 27, 39-45) -- she
nonetheless identified Mr. Adams as her assailant (RT 24). In
describing his examination of the prosecutrix, the physician who
examined her after this incident testified that she said she had
been raped by a "Nigger male" (RT 80), but he found no "bruises
or evidence of violence of the genital or sexual tract” (RT 81),
and the presence only of normal female vaginal secretions (RT
80-81). Throughout the trial, both the district attorney and the
defense counsel representing Mr. Adams referred to Mr. Adams by
his first name but referred to all other persons who were
witnesses, all of whom were white, as "Mr." or "Mrs.". In his
defense, although Mr. Adams admitted being present at the house
of the prosecutrix looking for work, he consistently denied
raping her. (RT 134-135, 147).
Accordingly, race was so clearly a factor in the trial of
Mr. Adams in byer County in October, 1962, and the evidence was
so wholly centered upon the resolution of credibility -- with a
white woman saying a black man had raped her and the black man
saying that he had not raped the white woman -~ that racially-
based stereotypes were evoked by the very issues which the jury
had to resolve. Under these circumstances, the systematic
exclusion of black people from the jury list permitted the
all-white, all-male jury to exercise arbitrary power against Mr.
Adams -- which is the very evil “a jury is to guard against."
Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 530 (1975).
On the basis of these facts, there can be no dispute that
the systematic exclusion of black people from Mr. Adams' jury
fundamentally undermined the integrity of the fact-finding
process leading to his rape conviction, which, in addition to the
two convictions discussed already, was the only conviction Mr.
Adams had before his arrival in Florida in 1973.
ee
Escape) From \ The
Cc. The Circumstances Surrounding 2 AG
Tennessee Prison System
Following his sentencing on October 30, 1962, Mr.
Adams was
committed to the Tennessee Department of Correction to serve his
ninety-nine year sentence. Nearly nine years thereafter, on
September 1, 1971, the Tennessee Board of Probation and Paroles
had found Mr. Adams' institutional record to be so exemplary that
the Board recommended to the Governor of Tennessee that Mr.
Adams’ sentence be commuted to time served. When the Governor of
Tennessee refused to grant the Board's recommendation, a chain of
events was set into motion which ultimately made Mr. Adams feel
that he had no alternative but to try to escape from the
Tennessee prison system.
On September 1, 1971, the Board of Probation and Paroles
found and recommended the following to Governor Winfield Dunn:
The Board finds that for the past five years,
Mr. Adams' institutional record has been
exemplary. It feels that due to the cir-
cumstances surrounding the crime and his
conviction, as related to the Board, he has
served an adequate number of years for the
offense committed. The Board, therefore,
recommends that his sentence be commuted to
Time Served with the Special Condition that he
be under the supervision of a State Probation
and Parole Counselor for a period of Ten Years
after the date of his discharge from prison.
The Board further recommends that a Special
Condition of this commutation be made, i.e., he
is not to enter Dyer County, Tennessee, under
any. circumstances during his period of super-
vision.
Appendix K at page 1. On or about the same time that this
recommendation was made to Governor Dunn, however, the district
attorney who had prosecuted Mr. Adams in 1962 objected to the
commutation of Mr. Adams' sentence. Appendix K at page 2. Under
Tennessee law at that time, an objection to commutation by the
prosecutor was sufficient reason for refusing to grant executive
clemency. Thereafter, Mr. Adams heard nothing with respect to
his recommended commutation. Finally, after he wrote to Governor
Dunn: on November 16, 1971, the Director of the Board of Probation
and Paroles responded by simply advising him "that the com-
mutation in your behalf was returned to this office from the
Governor's office on September 19, 1971 and was unsigned."
- 10 -
Appendix K at pages 3-5. Still trying to determine why he had
been denied commutation, Mr. Adams wrote the Governor on December
6, 1971 but did not learn why he had been denied commutation.
Appendix K at page 6. Finally, on January 14, 1972, the Com-
missioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction, Mark
Luttrell, told Mr. Adams that "the Governor did not see fit to
sign your executive clemency papers" at the time they were
submitted. However, Commissioner Luttrell indicated that within
another year Mr. Adams could request commutation again and that
at this time, Mr. Luttrell "would be willing to speak to the
Governor on your behalf." Appendix K at page 7.
In the intervening year between his recommended commutation
and his attempt to gain commutation again, Mr. Adams continued
making an exemplary institutional record. See, e:J., Appendix K
at pages 8-9, where Commissioner Luttrell commended Mr. Adams for
his work in constructing a picnic area at the main prison ("The
attitude and quality of work has certainly been outstanding and
all of us in the Department of Correction are most pleased to see
men like yourself respond in such a splendid manner"). At the
end of May, 1972, Mr. Adams requested the opportunity to meet the
clemency board again, Appendix K at page 10, and an executive
clemency interview was scheduled for "some time after September,
1972." Appendix K at page ll.
upon this interview, a recommendation was made to the entire
Board of Probation and Parole that Mr. Adams be recommended for
commutation. In the course of the Board's consideration of this
matter, however, Mr. Adams was told by his counselor at the
prison where he worked that “a problem had developed." Shortly
thereafter, he learned that the district attorney had again
objected to his commutation. The Board then decided that no
recommendation for commutation should be made to the Governor.
}- At the time that Mr. Adams was informed of this decision, he
was working as as trustee at a correctional facility for teenage
girls in Nashville, Tennessee. AS part of his work, he had
access to state-owned vehicles in which he ran errands. When he
was told of the Board's decision, his counselor indicated to him
that he would probably be taken off trustee's status and "moved
s41+
inside the walls" to avoid the temptation for him to escape. His
counselor also informed him for the first time that his com-
mutation had not been signed by Governor Dunn and his commutation
was not being recommended the second time, solely because of the
objection of the district attorney in Dyer County.
“At this point, Mr. Adams felt that he was faced with an im-
possible situation. He had worked very hard during the ten years
that he had served his sentence. He had developed an exemplary
institutional record; he had gained trustee status working at a
girls' institution (despite his conviction for rape); he was a
good candidate for commutation as evidenced by the positions
taken on his behalf taken by the Board of Probation and Paroles.
But he was now faced with the prospect of never gaining release
-- solely because the prosecutor objected to that release.
Because of these dynamics, Mr. Adams decided that he had to
escape if he were ever going to have any life other than that of
a convict. He felt that he had done all he could to earn his
freedom, and that even though the persons most directly concerned
with granting him freedom thought that he should be released, he
never would be. With the unfairness and discrimination of the
rape trial flooding over him ten years later, he got into the
truck to which he had access and he drove off.
D. The. Charge and Conviction of First-degree Murder
in St. Lucie County
Mr. Adams was arrested in St. Lucie County, Florida, and was
charged with the murder of Edgar Brown only ten months after he
escaped from the Tennessee prison system. What had happened to
him before in his contacts with the criminal justice in
Tennessee, however, would be revisited upon him in Florida in
connection with his prosecution for this murder. What happened
to him in St. Lucie County, in many respects, was the culmination
of what had gone on before in Tennessee. In the St. Lucie County
proceeding, Mr. Adams was convicted upon evidence which still
today suggests substantial doubt about his guilt. He was
convicted, however, because the state had Geveloped @ very berong
circumstantial case pointing to him, and because Mr. Adams was
an easy target. Mr. Adams had no "hard" evidence. to demonstrate
=o
his innocence. He had only his word that he was not involved in
the homicide of Mr. Brown but was engaged in other lawful
activity at the time of the homicide.
After reinvestigating Mr. Adams' case, we have found
evidence that was available but was not presented which greatly
strengthens the doubt about Mr. Adams' guilt, We do not know why
this evidence was not presented. We only know that now, in light
of this new evidence, there exists a real, reasonable doubt
concerning the guilt of James Adams. With the omission of this
evidence, however, Mr. Adams had no "hard evidence" of innocence.
When this fact was coupled with his prior convictions in
Tennessee, which were greatly exaggerated at trial, and which
were used unlawfully because of the constitutional defects
associated with each of them, and with his status as a black
outsider in a primarily rural county, Mr. Adams was an easy
scapegoat for the murder of one of the most prominent and wealthy
white people in that county.
Upon careful examination of these factors, we submit that
the need for clemency in Mr. Adams’ case is self-evident.
Clemency is compelled because all the circumstances of this
crime, both those which were and those which could have been
presented, strongly suggest (certainly under a reasonable doubt
standard) that James Adams is innocent, and that he was convicted
solely because he was a black outsider with a criminal record
accused of killing one of the most powerful white men in St.
Lucie County.
The Evidence of Record
qi)
The evidence presented by the state was wholly circum-
stantial. It showed that on the morning of November 12, 1973,
Edgar Brown was found injured in his home shortly before 10:40
A.M. (T. 441; 544). Apparently the perpetrator had entered the
residence unarmed while no one was in the house (T. 267, 324-25,
442-446). Sometime later the deceased returned home and dis-
covered the perpetrator (T. 241, 324-25). There was a struggle,
during which the deceased received head injuries from a fireplace
poker kept in the house. He died the next day.
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The state presented evidence that a car like that’ owned by
Mr. Adams was seen parked in front of the deceased's home the
morning that the crime occurred (T. 325, 358). The car was also
seen traveling to and from the vicinity of the deceased's home
that morning (T. 372-376; 397-398). One witness, Willie Orange,
positively identified Mr. Adams as the driver of the car (T.
377). Another witness, John Thompkins, thought that the driver
was Mc. Adams because the driver waved at him: "It had to be
him, because he throwed up his hand at me, because everybody that
passed there don't hardly wave at you unless you know him" (T.
398). Mr. Adams' car was located later that day at a paint and
d left directions that it be repainted (T.
865,
body shop where he ha
524), a course he had been considering months earlier (T.
930). Mr. Adams established that his vehicle had been driven the
morning of the offense at about 10:00 or 10:15 A.M., one-half
by his friend
862,
hour before the assault on the deceased (T. 352),
vivian Nickerson and another man Kenneth Crowell (T. 861,
938). The trunk of the car was defective and could be opened
without a key (T. 881).
The only state witness who saw a man leave the Brown house
at the approximate time of the homicide did not identify Mr.
Adams as that person, even though the witness conversed with the
person he saw. In fact, he said that person was blacker than Mr.
Adams (T. 366) and had no mustache (T. 361). [Yet the police
testified that just one day after the witness conversed with this
person, Mr. Adams had a mustache (T. 714-15).] The witness had
heard a woman's voice from inside the house before seeing the man
exit (T. 365).
Both the state and the defense presented evidence showing
that on November 12, 1973, Mr. Adams was in the process of moving
back to his wife's house from a friend's house where he had been
staying during a short separation (T. 634). Mr. Adams testified
that he transferred his belongings from the friend's house to his
car and then to his wife's car (T. 865). In his wife's car,
which was searched after Mr. Adams was arrested on the instant
were found several items identified as belonging to Edgar
ily (T. 648, 808, 810, 812, 816, 822).
charge,
Brown or members of his fam
~ 14 -
Mr. Adams had $185 on his person at the time of his arrest on
November 12, 1973, mostly in ten and twenty dollar denominations
(T, 580). Various witness for the State testified that the
deceased always carried between $700 and $1500 in cash, usually
in fifty and one hundred dollar denominations (T. 291-292,
455-456), which was missing when he was found (T. 815). One of
the twenty dollar bills carried by Mr. Adams had O-positive blood
on it.3
Throughout pretrial and trial proceedings, Mr. Adams
consistently maintained his innocence and denied any involvement
in or knowledge concerning the homicide of Edgar Brown. During
the guilt-innocence trial, he testified in great detail con-
cerning his activities during the time of the homicide, none of
which put him anywhere near the Brown residence (T. 837-927).
Prior to the imposition of his death sentence, after the trial
judge asked Mr. Adams if he had anything to say, Mr. Adams
responded, “all I would like to say one thing, Mr. Brown's
murderer is still out there. I didn't do it.” (T. 1192)
At the penalty trial, the state presented evidence that Mr.
Adams had been convicted of the rape of a “white ... married
lady" (T. 1171) in 1962 in Tennessee, and was sentenced to
ninety-nine years in prison for that charge. Also introduced
was testimony that Mr. Adams escaped from prison in 1973 while
serving his sentence for the rape conviction (T, 1163-1174). The
sole witness to these facts was Sheriff Cribbs of Dyer County,
Tennessee, who was permitted to identify Mr. Adams using pictures
and fingerprints taken at a Tennessee police station in 1956. No
evidence was presented on behalf of Mr. Adams in mitigation of
sentence (T, 1175).
In imposing a sentence of death, the trial judge found that
that the "aggravating circumstances far outweighing any miti-
gating circumstances, are as follows:
1. The capital felony of murder in the first
degree was committed by the defendant, James
Adams, while he was under a sentence of
3 Mr. Brown's blood was identified as O-positive (T. 720), but
the state's witness who typed Mr. Brown's blood conceded that
at least 45% of the people living in the United States have
such blood type (T. 722).
-15-
imprisonment for 99 years by the Court of
General Sessions, Dyer County, Tennessee after
a conviction on the charge of rape.
2. The defendant was previously convicted of a
capital felony, same being the charge of rape
above referred to and being a felony involving
also the use or threat of violence to the
person.
3. The capital felony of murder in the first
degree was committed while the defendant was
engaged in the commission of or in an attempt
to commit the crime of robbery.
4. The capital felony of murder in the first
degree was committed for the purpose of
avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest.
5. The capital felony of murder in the first
degree was especially heinous, atrocious and
cruel.
By his own admission the defendant was pre-
viously convicted of crimes on at least five
occasions and the further undisputed evidence
shows the defendant has a record involving
crimes of violence; that he is an escapee of
the State Prison System of the State of
Tennessee and that the body of the victim was
mutilated, mangled and disfigured unneces-
sarily.
(R. 84-85). On appeal, however, the Florida Supreme Court set
aside the finding of two of the aggravating circumstances:
The facts found by the trial judge support
[only] the following [four] aggravating
circumstances: (1) Adams committed the murder
while under a sentence of imprisonment,
specifically while an escapee from the State of |
Tennessee, where he had been convicted of rape
and sentenced to ninety-nine years impri-
sonment; (2) Adams was previously convicted of
a felony involving the use or threat of force
to a victim; (3) Adams committed the murder
dauring the course of a robbery; (4) the murder
was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel,
the record reflecting that he murdered his
victim by beating him past the point of
submission and until his body was grossly
mangled.
Adams v. State, 341 So.2d at 769.
(2) Doubt About Guilt in the Record
As these facts demonstrate, doubt about Mr. Adams’
guilt infused the evidence presented at his trial. While the
circumstances proven by the state tended to point to Mr. Adams
as the killer, sufficient doubt was engendered by the state's own
evidence that a genuine doubt remained as to whether the killer
was Mr. Adams or someone else. Such doubt infected nearly all of
the circumstances which pointed toward Mr. Adams as the killer.
-16-
First, although Mr. Adams' car was identified as the car
parked in the Brown's driveway at the time the homicide occurred,
that fact alone suggested doubt that Mr. Adams was the driver of
the car that day. The car was parked in the driveway in full
view of anyone who passed by the residence or came in or out of
the residence that morning. When Mr. Brown returned to his home
from a visit to his nephew's house that morning (just before he
entered the house and was killed), he spoke with one of his
employees for several minutes with the car in full view (T.
323-324). Mr. Brown said nothing about this car to the person
with whom he spoke. Thereafter, Mr. Brown drove within 10 to 15
feet of the car when he drove on past the car into the driveway.
(T, 327). That the car was so highly visible and that Mr. Brown
was not even moved to question his employee about whose car was
in his driveway, suggests that the car may have been familiar to
Mr. Brown. In any event, if James Adams had been planning a
burglary or homicide, he would certainly not have parked his car
at 10:30 in the morning in the driveway of the house which he
intended to burglarize. Only someone who intended to set Mr.
Adams up as the perpetrator of the crime would have done such a
thing.
Second, the only person who had the opportunity to identify
the killer was a man named Foy Hortman. Mr. Hortman drove into
the Brown's driveway shortly before he saw and spoke to a person
—_
who left the Brown's house (T. 352-371). After Mr. Hortman drove
up to the back of the Brown's house, and as he was getting out of
his vehicle, he heard someone say in a woman's voice, "in the
name of God, don't do it." (T. 355) Shortly thereafter, Mr.
Hortman got back to his vehicle and began to leave when he saw a
door open and a person came out of the Brown's house (T. 355-
356). Mr. Hortman identified this person as a black man, about
sixifeet tall, and 30 to 35 years old (T. 357-361). He further
noted that this person had short hair and a "real slim face" (T.
364). Mr. Hortman further testified that he had seen a lineup
which included Mr. Adams, and he had not identified Mr. Adams as
this person (T. 367). Mr. Hortman testified that the person he
saw exiting the Brown's house looked "blacker" than Mr. Adams and
=~ IF
had no mustache (T. 361, 366). At trial, Mr. Hortman testified
that he could not say that this person was Mr. Adams, nor could
he say that it was not Mr. Adams (T. 368). Based on Mr. Hort-
man's failure to identify Mr. Adams as this person in the police
lineup, his description of this person as "blacker" than Mr.
Adams, and his description of this person as not having a
mustache -- when Mr. Adams did have a mustache at that time (T.
714-715) -- a genuine doubt was ereated as to whether this person
was Mr. Adams. Certainly, the person with the best opportunity
to make that determination was unable to do so.
qhird, the identification of Mr. Adams as the driver of the
car seen at the Brown's house, as that car drove toward the
house, and as that car left the house, also left some room for
doubt. The person who identified Mr. Adams as the driver of the
e to the house testified that his basis for thinking
"It had to be
car enrout
aaa
that the driver was Mr. Adams was the following:
him, because he throwed up his hand at me, because everybody that
passed there don't hardly wave at you unless you know him" (T.
398). This hardly amounted to a positive identification of Mr.
Adams as the driver of the car.
On the other hand, the person who testified that he saw Mr.
Adams driving the car away from the Brown's house, Willie Orange,
did positively identify the driver as Mr. Adams (T. 376-3773
382). Even this identification has some room for doubt, however.
At the time he identified Mr. Adams, Mr. Orange was driving a
large fertilizer truck pulling a trailer loaded with 22 tons of
fertilizer (T. 372-376). Mr. Orange testified that he saw the
driver of the car as the car passed by him while he (Mr. Orange)
was sitting in the cab of his truck (T. 376). Anyone who has
ever been in the cab of a large truck that could pull 22 tons of
fertilizer knows that he or she is sitting at a height con-
siderably above the height of a passenger car. Moreover, because
Mr. Orange was having to downshift his truck and steer it in
order to avoid a collision with this vehicle, which was wobbling
all across the road (T. 375), he simply could not have had an
adequate opportunity to observe whether the driver was Mr. Adams
or someone else.
-18-
Fourth, the State presented evidence that at the time of his
arrest, Mr. Adams had in his possession a roll of money in the
amount of $185, most of which was in ten and twenty dollar
denominations (T. 580). One of the twenty dollar bills in Mr.
Adams' possession had a bloodstain on it which was the same type
of blood as the victim's blood, O-Positive (T. 720, 734). While
there were traces of blood on three other bills taken from Mr.
Adams, these amounts were insufficient to type. Id. While the
State suggested that this evidence proved that Mr. Adams had
taken the money from Mr. Brown, there was simply too much doubt
surrounding this evidence to establish this proposition. Mr.
Adams testified that this amount of money was a combination of
the remainder of a $200 loan from his employer, from some money
he had saved, and from winnings in card games in recent days (T.
917). Mr. Adams‘ (employer) confirmed that he had loaned Mr. Adams
$200 some time before the date of the homicide (T. 677-678).
Moreover, the amount of money seized from Mr. Adams was far less
than the victim was known to carry, which ranged in amount from
$700 to $1,500 (T. 291-292, 455-456). The State presented
absolutely no evidence that Mr. Adams had spent, concealed, or
otherwise disposed of any large sum of money ($500 to $1,300) in
the amount of time that elapsed between the homicide and his
arrest. Finally, that a bloodstain on one of the dollar bills
seized from Mr. Adams matched the type of the victim's blood
proved nothing. As the serologist testified at trial, the
bloodstain on that dollar bill not only matched the type of blood
of the victim but also matched the type blood of 45% of the
people living in the United States (T. 722). Further, even if
this bill were stained with the blood of the victim, Mr. Adams
reasonably could have obtained that bill in the card game he
played with Vivian Nickerson after the homicide (T. 861-862).
i Fifth, some genuine doubt was also ereated by the State's
failure to submit certain significant evidence to the State Crime
Laboratory for fingerprint analysis. The most significant items
were a watch and two rings which were identified as having been
removed from the room in the Brown's house in which the victim
was found (T. 807-813). These items were removed from the trunk
= 19 -
of the automobile which Mr. Adams was driving at the time of his
arrest (T. 616-617). None of these items was sent to the Crime
Lab for examination (T. 618).
Accordingly, although the circumstantial evidence presented
by the state tended to point toward Mr. Adams of the perpetrator
of the homicide, even the circumstantial evidence which pointed
most clearly to Mr. Adams, detailed above, left genuine doubt as
to whether Mr. Adams or someone else was the perpetrator.
(3) Doubt About Guilt Multiplied: The Evidence Not
Presented
In recent weeks, a reinvestigation of the facts concerning
the Edgar Brown homicide has been undertaken, In the course of
that reinvestigation, ‘we have discovered significant facts which
were not presented at trial which create even stronger doubt
about Mr. Adams' guilt. These facts include the following:
First, we now know that the testimony of Foy Hortman, the
person who saw and described the apparent perpetrator of the
homicide as that person left the Brown's house, was inaccurate.
As we noted above, Mr. Hortman testified that he was unable to
identify Mr. Adams in a lineup as the person he saw. However, he
indicated that Mr. Adams may have been the person or may not have
been the person. In fact, at the time of the lineup on November
13, 1973 (just one day after the incident), Mr. Hortman was much
more certain that Mr. Adams was not the person he saw exiting the
Brown's house. The notes of the St. Lucie County Sheriff's
Department's personnel who recorded Mr. Hortman's response at the
lineup indicate the following: “Foy Edgar Hortman, no I/D of any
man in lineup positive no of these men involved." See Appendix
L. Thus, at the time when Mr. Hortman's memory would have been
the freshest, he was “positive” that Mr. Adams was not the person
he had seen exiting the Brown's house. This is extraordinarily
significant, not only from the perspective of excluding Mr. Adams
as ‘nat person, but also from the perspective of excluding Mr.
Adams as the driver of the vehicle whom witness Willie Orange had
identified as Mr. Adams. Mr. Hortman made clear in his trial
testimony that the person he saw leave the Brown's house got into
the automobile parked in front of the Brown's house and left (T.
- 20 -
testimony that the person he saw leave the Brown‘s house got into
the automobile parked in front o£ the Brown's house and left (T.
358).
Second, Mr. Adams has consistently testified that he had
nothing to do with the killing of Edgar Brown, and that the only
person who had access to his automobile during the period of the
homicide was Vivian Nickerson. Since vivian Nickerson was at the
time a fifteen-year old young woman, however, she would not seem
to have met the description of the person who exited the Brown's
house. Nonetheless, no photograph of Ms. Nickerson was ever
shown to Mr. Hortman, nor was he ever asked to examine a lineup
which included her. This omission could have been highly
significant, for at that time and since, Ms. Nickerson met many
of the features of Mr. Hortman's description, including height
and size and complexion. Further, as photographs of Ms. Nicker-
son demonstrate (see Appendix M), Ms. Nickerson has a strikingly
masculine appearance. Thus, even though Mr. Hortman identified
the person whom he saw leave the Brown's house as a man, he could
easily have mistaken Ms. Nickerson for a man. Moreover, were Ms.
Nickerson the person whom Mr. Hortman saw, we could understand
how Mr. Hortman heard a woman's voice in the house just before he
saw the person exiting the house. Thus, the failure to ask Mr.
Hortman to view Ms. Nickerson may well have prevented the
positive identification of the perpetrator of the homicide.
Third, in light of Dr. Dorothy Lewis' examination of Mr.
Adams recently, we now know that Mr. Adams has likely been
suffering from psychomotor epilepsy since he was a teenager. As
Dr. Lewis has documented, there have been times in Mr. Adams'
Life when this disorder has made him have blackouts, made him
unable to remember events which have occurred, and made him
unable to orient himself to familiar situations and places. (See
Appendix D) Since Ms. Nickerson had been dating Mr. Adams for
some time prior to the homicide (T. 859), she could very well
have observed the symptoms of Mr. Adams' disorder and known that
there were times when he could not remember what he had done or
where he had been, Mr. Adams' condition, therefore, made him
2 216
vulnerable to being blamed for a crime that ne did not commit.
And, Ms. Nickerson's likely knowledge of this vulnerability, made
Mr. Adams the perfect camouflage for her crime.
“ pourth, in order to corroborate his testimony that he had
been continuously at the house of Vivian Nickerson between
approximately 10:00 A.M. and 3:00 P.M. on the day of the homicide
-=- the homicide having occurred at approximately 10:30 A.M.
Mr. Adams called Vivian Nickerson as his witness at trial.
vivian Nickerson testified that Mr. Adams did not arrive
Thus,
However,
at her house that morning until “after 11:00" (T. 955).
Ms. Nickerson not only failed to corroborate Mr. Adams' testi-
mony, but actually undermined his testimony. Significantly, Mr.
aAdams' defense counsel did not demonstrate to the jury the incre-
dibility of Ms. Nickerson's testimony at trial in light of her
sworn testimony in a pretrial deposition on January 31, 1974.
See Appendix N. In her deposition, Ms. Nickerson testified that
once Mr. Adams came to her house to play cards, he did not leave
until 4:00 or 4:30 in the afternoon. Appendix N at pages 5-6.
She also conceded that after Mr. Adams got to her house to play
cards, she borrowed his automobile to go buy another deck of
cards. Appendix N at page 6. Finally, Ms. Nickerson testified in
her deposition that “it was before" 10:30 A.M. that she borrowed
Mr. Adams' car and that at that time, Mr. Adams was already at
her house. Appendix N at page 7.
pifth, there was "hard evidence” of Mr. Adams' lack of
involvement which could have been presented at trial but which
was not. Among the items of physical evidence sent to the Crime
Laboratory for analysis was the following: “Hair removed from
Mr. Brown's hand, by his wife, while in the ambulance enroute to
the hospital. This hair was thrown on the floor of the ambu-~
lance, the ambulance was cleaned out, and the hair thrown in the
trash can." See Appendix 0. The person who submitted this
evidence to the Crime Lab asked that the hair be compared to the
= 226
known hair of Mr. Adams. Id, At trial, the deputy sheriff who
transmitted this evidence to the Crime Lab testified as follows:
Q: Do you recall receiving any hair from the
ambulance?
A: From the personnel, Yes, Sir.
Q: What is the name of the person you
received some of that hair from?
A: I can't remember.
Qs Did you submit that to the lab for
testing?
A: Yes, Sir.
Q: And this was for comparison, was it not?
A: Yes, Sir, it was.
Q: It was to be compared with what other
hair?
A: The hair from the suspect.
Q: Is this the hair that Mr. Adams gave you?
A: Yes, Sir.
(T. 505-506). Upon examining the hair which the Sheriff's
Department said was recovered from the victim's hand, the State
Crime Laboratory determined that the hair could not have come
While the hair was "very dark
from Mr. Adams. Appendix 0.
brown, Negroid, [and] curly," Appendix 0, the State Crime Lab
excluded Mr. Adams as the source of that hair. This evidence was
not presented at trial, but its clear import would have been to
corroborate Mr. Adams'testimony that he had nothing to do with
the homicide since, presumably, the hair found on the hand of the
victim which was Negroid in origin would have been the hair of
the perpetrator, who was known to have been a black person.4
4 mr. Adams raised an issue in his recent Rule 3.850 proceeding
concerning the state's failure to disclose the results of the
laboratory analysis of this evidence to defense counsel before
trial. Defense counsel could not remember whether the lab
results had been provided to him or not, but he had some re~-
collection that he had found that the hair on Mr. Brown's hand
was "a red herring" anyway. With this comment, defense
,eounsel suggested that he would not have used the laboratory
‘vesults if he had been provided them. In order to support
defense counsel's theory, the state put on witnesses to
suggest that the deputy sheriff who had recovered the hair had
lied about its origin. [The deputy sheriff who collected the
hair and sent it to the Crime Lab, Richard Browning, is now
dead.}] Under either theory, however, doubt about Mr. Adams'
guilt is multiplied by these facts. If Deputy Browning had
been telling the truth and had recovered the hair as he
recounted, then the exclusion of Mr. Adams as the source of
that hair, is “hard evidence” that he was not the perpetrator.
If, on the other hand, Deputy Browning was falsifying his
-23-
Sixth, we now know that Willie Orange, the only person who
positively identified Mr.Adams as the driver of the car as it was
leaving the area of the Brown's residence, had a reason to lie
about his identification of Mr. Adams. Three witnesses have been
found who heard Mr. Orange talking before trial about his
motivation to testify against Mr. Adams. The first, Cleo Orange,
who is his former wife, recounted the following:
Some time just before the trial started, he
[Willie Orange] came over to my house and told
me he had heard that I was messing around with
James Adams. He asked me if I was messing
around with James Adams and I said no. My
husband said "Well, he'll get what he deserves
_ anyway."
Appendix P. The second, Jessie Washington, who was a co-worker
of Mr. Orange at the time of the trial, recalled the following
conversation with Mr. Orange after Mr. Brown had been murdered
but before Mr. Adams' trial started:
I recall on one occasion prior to the James
Adams' trial, there were several people,
including Willie Orange, standing around
talking. Willie Orange stated that James Adams
had been messing around with his wife, Cleo.
Appendix P. The third, a person named, Ward Lesine, was engaged
in a conversation by Willie Orange on the day that Mr. Adams'
trial started in which the following took place:
I was in the St. Lucie County courthouse the
day James Adams' trial was to start because I
was a witness. Willie Orange came off the
elevator with Mrs. Brown. I was sitting on the
bench and Mrs. Brown and Willie Orange came up
to me. Mrs. Brown asked me if I had known Mr.
Brown and I told her I did not. Willie Orange
said to me "I'm going to send_him because he's
b ng with mW 7 unders to
mean James Adams. He also said "He'll never
walk on land again." "I'll bet he never gets
‘this yellow woman again." I knew he meant his
wife because his wife was light-skinned. All
of this occurred before James Adams' trial
started.
ai ig, "hard evidence" that_he not _-the rpetrator.
° . pu ts in as s ng his
report about this evidence, then everything that Deputy
Browning did in connection with this case -~ which involved
the collection of all physical evidence including, critically,
the evidence from the car in which Mr. Adams was arrested, is
subject to question. Most critically, whether Deputy Browning
had a role in falsifying or planting other evidence, for
example in the car, is a critical doubt about. guilt raised by
the State's version of the significance of this hair evidence.
= 24 -
Appendix P. What Willie Orange said to these three people
strongly draws into question his truthfulness in his iden-
tification of Mr. Adams as the driver of the vehicle which he saw
speeding away from the Brown's house on the day of the homicide.
Moreover, we asked Willie Orange to submit to a polygraph
examination concerning the subject matter of his testimony and
concerning his motive for giving untruthful testimony against
James Adams, and he agreed to do so. He showed deceit in all of
his answers. See Appendix Q, Accordingly, the only positive
identification of Mr. Adams as the person present at or near the
Brown's house at the time of the homicide was untruthful .5
Seventh, on the basis of information now known about Mr.
Adams' prior criminal record, we now know that the prosecutor
substantially misguided the jury when he argued "[Mr. Adams] is
an experienced criminal who has lied to save his own skin." If
the jury had known the truth about Mr. Adams' criminal record,
they certainly could not have accepted the prosecutor's charac-
terization of Mr. Adams as “an experienced criminal.”
In sum, had all of the evidence raising doubt about Mr.
Adams' guilt been submitted to the jury, there would have been at
least a reasonable doubt about Mr. Adams’ guilt. The evidence
would have shown that the only person who had the opportunity to
observe the perpetrator was “positive” that Mr. Adams was not
that person. The evidence would have shown that Willie Orange's
identification of Mr. Adams as the person driving away from
Brown's house was wholly unbelievable because of his stated
motive to "get" James Adams. The evidence would have shown that
a specimen of hair asserted by the investigating deputy to have
been recovered from the hand of Mr. Brown in the ambulance after
the assault against him could not have come from James Adams.
Even if the deputy's assertion were discredited, the integrity
:
5 at trial, defense counsel attempted to raise the same question
concerning the credibility of Mr. Orange's testimony. In his
opening argument, defense counsel stated, "We intend to show
that Willie Orange knew Mrs. Adams, James Adams' wife, that
Willie Orange knew James Adams, and that Willie Orange knew
that James Adams' wife -- that James Adams was going out with
his wife" (T. 833). Despite this assertion in his argument,
defense counsel presented no evidence to support this asser-
tion, although that evidence was clearly available.
-25-
of the remainder of the physical evidence supposedly pointing
toward Mr. Adams would have been drawn into substantial question.
Had the jury been told about Vivian Nickerson's sworn testimony
less than two months before James Adams' trial which unequi-
vocally corroborated Mr. Adams' testimony that he was con-
tinuously at Ms. Nickerson's house from before the homicide until
well after the homicide, the jury would have been more likely to
suspect Vivian Nickerson as the perpetrator than James Adams.
Once again, therefore, in a case in which his life hung in
the balance, the criminal justice system short-changed James
Adams. Much of the evidence which suggested genuine, substantial
doubt about his guilt was not presented. Had it been, there can
be no dispute that there would have been reasonable doubt about
his guilt, and he would not be applying for clemency today. Once
again, James Adams was the easy target. His prior criminal-
ization, his vulnerability to being set up, and the lack of
presentation of the best evidence that he did not kill Edgar
Brown combined to deprive him of yet another fair trial.
(4) Race Discrimination Culminated: Mr. Adams’
Death Sentence
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that a trial in
which there was so little concern for the truth would be followed
by a penalty proceeding in which there was no regard demonstrated
for the life of the defendant. If that is the case, then Mr.
Adams' penalty trial was no surprise. In that stark, brief drama,
all of the unfairness, all of the racism, and all of the disdain
for the worth of the life of a single black man came into focus.
At that trial, the State presented evidence that Mr. Adams
had been convicted of the rape of fi "white _... married lady" (T.
1171) in 1962 in Tennessee, and was sentenced to ninety-nine
years in prison for that charge. There was no objection that the
race of the victim of that alleged crime was wholly irrelevant to
the sentence determination in Mr. Adams’ Florida trial. There
was no objection that this testimony was designed solely to
inflame the racial passions of the jury in Florida in order to
encourage them to sentence Mr. Adams to death for the homicide of
a powerful white man. And yet, the testimony went on. The State
wat DG we
introduced testimony that Mr. Adams had escaped from prison in
1973 while serving his sentence for the rape conviction (T.
1163-1164). Nothing was presented by the defense to show why,
and under what great duress, Mr. Adams escaped, Nothing was
presented on behalf of Mr. Adams to show that the escape involved
no violence, but simply involved driving a truck which he had
been permitted to drive, beyond the boundaries of his prison.
No one bothered to point out that the racist, unfair rape
conviction for which Mr. Adams had given ten years of his youth,
was threatening to take the rest of his life behind bars. And
perhaps the judge and the prosecutor should not have been
surprised under these circumstances when, at the close of the
State's case, Mr. Adams' defense counsel indicated that he had no
evidence to present:
THE COURT: you're resting your case?
MR, FORD [the prosecutor]: Do you have
nothing to offer?
MR. SHOPP [the defense attorney]: We have
no evidence.
(T, 1175).
Nor would the racism and the denial of a fair trial end
here. Just a few moments later, the prosecutor summed it all up
for the State of Florida when he urged that Mr. Adams be
sentenced to death because he dared to escape from prison in
Tennessee and come to St. Lucie County to kill a powerful white
~* citizen:
(Mr. Adams] was only out of jail, after he
escaped, less than one year before he chose to
come to this county to kill Edgar Brown, a ¥
jong=time resident here, a man that had been
married for forty years, an ex-chief deputy, a
rominent man, a-man_that—had—contriputed-a lot
prom
to our_gounty, had Livad-here ot tte life.
This, man cane, Pore tron tenasesse.*S do this to
on ple.
(v. 1179). And finally, in defense of Mr. Adams‘ life, defense
counsel could muster no more than the following one-minute
argument for a man whose life had been unfairly devastated by a
racist criminal justice system for thirty years.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you have heard all the
evidence and you have found James Adams to be
guilty of first-degree murder. I understand
how Mrs. Brown felt during her testimony
recalling the testimony in which she saw her
husband lying there in the condition he was. I
-27-
(Tt.
understand Mr. Brown's reputation in the
community. I think you understand the sit-
uation, You have heard all the evidence. The
only thing, we can ask you here today is to
consider whether or not the death penalty is
appropriately in this case. Now, the Florida
Legislature has declared in its infinite wisdom
that the death penalty is a proper judgment in
some cases, and the State is allowed to
introduce evidence to show why it believes that
here today is a case where you could appro-
priately advise the court that this man should
be put to death and yet I find it necessary to
ask for you to consider that you save his life
in spite of all this and let this man live, for
no other reason than that he is a man. Thank
you.
1180).
- 28 -
e
Conclusion
In St. Lucie County, Florida in 1974, history repeated
itself, A history that began in Tennessee with the theft of a
pig for food, that continued through an unjustified and racially
motivated conviction for rape, that continued thereafter through
a ten-year exemplary prison record giving rise to dreams of
freedom that were, crushed by the racist hand of the system which
sent him to prison to start with, was fittingly culminated ina
trial in which the innocence of the defendant was ignored and the
worthiness of the defendant to live was never mentioned. History
will continue to repeat itself even if the State of Florida kills
James Adams. There have been many others like James Adams in
this state. There will be more in the future, unless someone
says no. Saying no to racism and to unfairness, are popular
things to say. Stopping racism and unfairness may be more
difficult. Now is the time to undertake what is difficult.
Please say no.
Respectfully submitted,
RICHARD L. JORANDBY
Public Defender
15th Judicial Circuit of Florida
224 Datura Street/13th Floor
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
(305) 837-2150
CRAIG S. BARNARD
Chief Assistant Public Defender
RICHARD H. BURR III
Of Counsel
RICHARD B. GREENE
Assistant Public Defender
MICHAEL A.MELLO
Assistant Public Defender
May 1, 1984
= 29 -
