Jacksonville.com: A new twist keeping case, cop killer alive 9/14/97

Sunday, September 14, 1997

Story last updated at 9:29 p.m. on Saturday, September 13, 1997

A new twist keeping case, cop killer alive

By Vivian Wakefield
Times-Union staff writer

Leo Jones has never sat in Florida's electric chair, but he's seen it up close, watched it being tested and knows he's the next man scheduled to die in it.

By challenging the constitutionality of the electric chair in court, Jones has managed since April to postpone his date with death.

That postponement, which has enabled Jones' lawyers to find new witnesses they say clear him, was scheduled to end tomorrow.

But Jones, convicted of fatally shooting a Jacksonville police officer in 1981, got a reprieve last week when the Florida Supreme Court issued an indefinite stay of execution, giving Jones more time to fight for his life.

Making a first-time claim last week that there was an eyewitness to the murder and a shocking allegation of bribery involving a judge who has presided over the case from the beginning, Jones' defense team added a new twist toa case that's dragged on for 16 years.

Never before have defense lawyers mentioned in court that there was an eyewitness to the shooting of Officer Thomas Szafranski, killed as he drove his patrol car near Davis and Sixth streets in March 1981.

In a court motion filed last week, Jones' defense lawyers said they found the witness, Roy Williams, on April 7 in the Duval County jail and he told them another man, career criminal Glenn Schofield, killed Szafranski.

Schofield has bragged to fellow inmates for years about killing Szafranski, defense lawyers say, and now a witness has fingered him in the slaying.

But why wait until last week, five months after getting Williams' sworn statements, to bring out the allegations?

Jones' attorney Martin McClain said the court challenge to the constitutionality of the electric chair delayed his client's execution, giving his team more time to develop the case.

''We had the time to actually go and follow up and interview other witnesses and look for other witnesses,'' he said.

Jones' defense team brought up the issue last week because it was within a week of the stay of execution expiring, McClain said.

One new witness is Jacksonville convict Leroy Tillie, in a federal prison in Atlanta, who said he saw Schofield near Madison Street after the shooting carrying a rifle and saying he had to get out of town because he had just shot someone.

''We thought we had everything together, and we thought it was time to go ahead and file it,'' McClain said.

For 13 years, Jones' lawyers have looked for Williams, known by them as Shorty. They heard of Williams, at Tomoka Correctional Institution in Daytona Beach, from prison inmates who said Schofield had bragged in prison of getting away with killing Szafranski.

The inmates told the lawyers that Schofield, now at Union Correctional Institution near Raiford, used to hang out with a man known as Shorty.

With only a street name to go by, an investigator working for Jones' lawyers tried earlier this year to find Shorty as Jones' execution date neared. Investigator Michael Chavis learned in April that Shorty was locked in the Duval County jail under the name Roy Williams.

In an affidavit, Williams claims he saw Schofield shoot Szafranski and that Schofield claimed the officer had harassed him on several occasions.

Police talked to Schofield in 1981, but did not arrested him in the shooting that occurred near the apartment where Jones lived. Thinking the shot came from an apartment, police discovered Leo Jones standing near a bed. Under the bed were two .30-30 rifles, one of which contained his fingerprints.

Ballistics experts testified in Jones' trial that a .30-30 rifle was used in the shooting, but they couldn't say if Jones' rifle was the one used.

Jones confessed to the shooting hours after it occurred, but he later recanted his confession, saying police beat it out of him and that he was innocent.

In numerous appeals, Jones' attorneys have claimed Schofield was the person who shot Szafranski, citing affidavits from prison inmates. But Circuit Judge A.C. Soud Jr. never allowed their affidavits to be used in court, questioning their credibility.

Now McClain is questioning Soud's objectivity and wants to disqualify him from hearing a motion to vacate Jones' murder conviction on grounds of new evidence. McClain contends in another motion that Soud never disclosed at Jones' 1981 trial that he represented Jones in a 1969 case and funneled a $700 bribe from Jones' mother and girlfriend to former Circuit Judge William Harvey to get a sentenced reduced.

Soud has declined comment, citing the Rules of Judicial Conduct, which prohibit judges from discussing pending cases.

It is unclear whether recent allegations against Soud will have any influence on the Florida Supreme Court's decision about whether the state's 74-year-old electric chair might cause pain to those executed.

The court's decision depends on whether it accepts Soud's ruling that the chair, which spurted flames during the March execution of Pedro Medina, is now functioning properly. McClain said he didn't know about the allegations against Soud when he wrote a brief to the Supreme Court arguing against using the electric chair to execute Jones.

Times-Union senior writer Randolph Pendleton contributed to this report.