Florida death row inmate's appeal wins backing from former prosecutors
By Barbara Liston ORLANDO Fla. (Reuters) - A death row inmate's appeal for a new trial in Florida has won the backing of 14 former prosecutors and government attorneys who either sought or defended many death sentences in their careers. Clemente Aguirre, 33, was convicted in the 2004 stabbing murders of his neighbors at a Seminole County trailer park. New evidence since his 2006 conviction, especially DNA found in the trailer, point to a mentally ill relative of the victims who later confessed twice during mental breakdowns to the murders, according to Aguirre’s appeal to the Florida Supreme Court. “A new trial is warranted because the state’s circumstantial evidence no longer can exclude the very reasonable and credible hypothesis of innocence,” the lawyers wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief filed last week. The brief also notes, “Florida leads the nation in the number of death-row individuals who have been exonerated.” Oral arguments are expected early next year, Maria DeLiberato, one of Aguirre’s appellate lawyers, said Wednesday. The lawyers who threw their support behind Aguirre’s appeal include former Florida Supreme Court Justice Gerald Kogan, six former prosecutors and seven former attorneys general in Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and Texas. Aguirre, an illegal immigrant, testified at trial that he found the bodies of his friends but did not call police because he feared being deported back to Honduras. Cheryl Williams, 47, was stabbed 129 times, and her mother, Carol Bareis, 69, was stabbed twice. Of 197 pieces of evidence collected in the case, Aguirre’s lawyer viewed none and requested no DNA testing, the appeal said. Tests by Aguirre’s appeal lawyers found that eight fresh blood stains at the crime scene matched Samantha Williams, the daughter and granddaughter of the victims, and none matched Aguirre, according to a report by the Innocence Project last year. A blood splatter expert hired by appellate lawyers concluded that a blood smear on Aguirre’s shorts was from contact with blood, not the spray that would mark the killer. This fit Aguirre’s testimony that he rolled Williams over to check for a pulse. In Florida, two dozen death row inmates have been found innocent, the most of any state. The state, one of a very few where juries can recommend a death sentence without a unanimous vote, adds more new death sentences each year than almost any other. (Editing by David Adams and Cynthia Osterman)
