Tuesday, September 9, 1997

Story last updated at 10:53 p.m. on Monday, September 8, 1997

An attorney representing Death Row inmate Leo Alexander Jones filed a motion yesterday accusing Circuit Judge A.C. Soud Jr. of accepting money in 1969, while he was a private attorney, in order ''to bribe'' a judge on Jones' behalf.

Soud sentenced Jones to death in 1981 for killing a Jacksonville police officer and this year twice decided in the Jones case that Florida's electric chair does not constitute cruel or unusual punishment.

In another motion filed yesterday in Jacksonville, Jones' attorney Martin McClain said new evidence shows Jones is innocent of killing officer Thomas Szafranski. McClain said the new evidence includes an eyewitness who said he saw another man shoot Szafranski.

In court documents, McClain accuses Soud of accepting $700 when he was a private attorney to give to former Criminal Court Judge William T. Harvey to reduce a one-year county jail sentence Jones was serving.

Harvey, now deceased, was indicted on taking bribes in two cases unrelated to Jones in 1969.

Soud declined to comment on the motion last night because of the pending case on the electric chair before the Florida Supreme Court.

The second motion filed yesterday also requests that Jones' murder conviction and sentence be set aside, that a hearing on the new evidence be held and that an indefinite stay of execution be granted.

The state high court granted an indefinite stay of execution for Jones yesterday while it decides whether electrocution is cruel or unusual punishment. The previous stay was set to expire on Monday.

McClain said Soud's personal involvement with Jones should disqualify him from further proceedings in this case and that another judge outside of the Fourth Judicial Circuit should be assigned.

The court is reviewing for the second time a decision by Soud, who held the chair does not constitute cruel or unusual punishment.

After Soud's first ruling, the court sent the case back to him for more extensive hearings, which he conducted in July. At the time, three justices recommended Soud's removal from the case.

In the motions filed concerning Soud, McClain includes written statements from Jones' former girlfriend Alberta Brown, who said she and Jones' mother, Jessie Hester, met with Soud in 1969.

At the time of the meeting, Jones was serving a year in Duval County jail on attempted grand larceny charges after being represented by a public defender, according to the motion.

In the court documents, Brown said she and Hester gave Soud $700 in cash ''to bribe'' Harvey. After that, Brown said, another hearing was set in Jones' case.

On April 16, 1969, Harvey reduced Jones' one-year county jail sentence to one-year probation.

Later that year, Harvey was indicted on two counts of accepting a bribe - one involved a breaking-and-entering case before him; the other involved a manslaughter case that already had been tried in his court.

As part of a plea bargain, Harvey pleaded guilty to malpractice involving the breaking-and-entering case. He was fined, given probation and resigned as a judge and from The Florida Bar.

The second bribery case was dropped during Harvey's sentencing in the first case.

Jones' motion filed yesterday said the bribery claim had not been made earlier because Brown feared it would create legal problems for Jones' mother, who died in June.

The motion regarding the eyewitness to the 1981 shooting stated that Roy Williams saw Glenn Schofield, both of Jacksonville, commit the crime for which Jones was convicted.