Death Trip: The American Way of Execution (Page 12)

Florida's Folly, and Spenkelink

Not surprisingly, the execution that haunted the new era was in the South's most enthusiastic sentencer of the damned, Florida. As previously mentioned, the victim was John Spenkelink. On May 25, 1979, he became the first person in twelve years to be executed in the United States against his will. (Gary Gilmore had invited Nevada to kill him, and it complied in 1977.)

The background and foreground of Spenkelink's case dramatically demonstrated the way race and social status would continue to dominate the death penalty despite the "reforms" of Furman. It also illustrated the confusion that would forever arise from the new guiding standards.

The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the "worst of the worst" crimes. In an effort to guarantee this, Florida listed this catchall category--"the capital felony was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel"--among the aggravating circumstances that a jury should consider when deciding on the penalty. The Florida Supreme Court said it felt "the meaning of such terms is a matter of common knowledge" and "an ordinary man would not have to guess at what is intended." However, apparently fearing that trial judges and lawyers might stumble where ordinary men would not, the court supplied another bushel of modifiers, explaining, for example, that "heinous" means "extremely wicked and shockingly evil" and that "atrocious" means "outrageously wicked and vile."

Well, OK. But watching the Florida high court itself interpret these words was another matter, and quite enough to leave the ordinary man scratching his head. For instance, Thomas Halliwell, a former Green Beret, became so enraged at his lover's husband that he shattered the man's skull with a steel bar and then used a machete, hacksaw and fishing knife to cut up the body for storage in a garbage can and footlocker. The trial jury said that was indeed a heinous, atrocious and cruel crime, but the Florida Supreme Court said it was not, because the mutilation had occurred "many hours" after the crime.

Well, if beating somebody to death with a nineteen-inch steel bar wasn't especially heinous, how about beating somebody to death with a roofing hatchet? How about mortally wounding somebody with a knife and leaving him to die painfully over a long period? How about tying up three people and shooting them in the head? When convictions raising these questions came before the court, the answer in each case was no, not "especially." And in other cases that were no bloodier or even far less bloody, the court ruled in the opposite direction.

One such case involved Spenkelink, a 24-year-old former convict and drifter. He had picked up a hitchhiker named Joseph Szymankiewicz, another former convict, in the Midwest, and together they drove to Florida. Along the way, Szymankiewicz, who was larger and stronger, forced Spenkelink to have sexual relations with him and bullied him into playing Russian roulette. When they reached Tallahassee, Florida, Spenkelink discovered that his abuser had also stolen his money. They fought, and Spenkelink shot Szymankiewicz to death.

That was on February 4, 1973. Shortly thereafter, a Tallahassee jury convicted Spenkelink of first-degree murder, finding the crime especially heinous, and recommended the death penalty. The trial judge (who in Florida is empowered to overturn a jury's verdict) agreed, and so did the Florida Supreme Court. This was just an ordinary skid-row killing, one trashy nobody killing another trashy nobody in an ordinary fight, after considerable provocation and with considerable justification. If the rhubarb had taken place in Miami, at the other end of the state, where homicides are as common as cumulus clouds and attract little more attention, Spenkelink would probably have drawn ten years in the penitentiary and four inches on page 12 of the Miami Herald.

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