In a letter addressed to the Florida Commission on Offender Review and the Florida Executive Clemency Board today, clemency counsel Adam Tebrugge objects to the denial of clemency for Mike Lambrix and requests a stay of execution in order to allow time for the full Clemency Board to conduct a hearing regarding the request for commutation of death sentence for his client who is due to be executed next February 11th, 2016. Further, he requests that Attorney General Pam Bond recuses herself from any further review in this case and also requests the release of statements made by the trial judge, the Hon. Richard Stanley. He argues that "Mr. Lambrix was not even afforded an interview or a 15 minute hearing where he could explain why his sentence should be commuted to life."
What the letter says
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Michael Lambrix has always maintained that he acted in self-defense; that is why he previously turned down several plea offers of life imprisonment. The question presented in his plea for clemency is whether the death penalty is warranted. (...) There were numerous egregious structural failures that occurred during Mike Lambrix’s trial that have not been considered: one of the witnesses admitted that Mr. Lambrix never confessed to her; the trial judge (who was always armed with a shotgun while on the bench) admitted in 1996 that when it came to death penalty cases, he would shoot the defendants himself; the lead prosecutor has a history of securing wrongful convictions; Mr. Lambrix was denied the right to testify; there was evidence that existed at the time of trial regarding a plea deal and hair evidence that had never been disclosed; the jury never heard that the male victim had a history of violence; and several biased and partial jurors served on the jury for the retrial after it the first trial ended in a hung jury because, after eleven hours (11) the jurors could not determine whether the State had proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. (...) In additional to the foregoing, Mr. Lambrix wants the Cabinet to consider that if his case went to trial today, it would be very unlikely that the death penalty would be recommended or imposed. (...) In death penalty cases, the clemency process traditionally was intended to function as a final safeguard or “fail safe” in our criminal justice system to evaluate (1) the fairness and judiciousness of the penalty in the context of the circumstances of the crime and the individual; and (2) whether a person should be put to death. See Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 415 (1993). There is a demonstrated need for procedural bars within the court system but it is just as important that those procedural bars do not result in a travesty of justice. |
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Mike Lambrix has been on death row for over 30 years in Florida. He has always maintained that he acted in self defence . He has previously turned down several plea offers of life imprisonment. At his first trial, the Glades County jury ended with the declaration of a mistrial on December 17, 1983, when the jury failed to reach a verdict after deliberating for 11 hours. The retrial jury found M. Lambrix on two counts of indictment on February 24, 1984. Read more about the case here |
