Don’t Preach Pro-life While Actually Practicing Pro-death

As I write this its is Friday December 1st –World Aids Day. In my death row cell I just watched the ABC World News, which did a story about how some of the country’s leading conservative evangelical religious leaders are very upset because Illinois Senator Barack Obama was invited to be a guest speaker at a conservative church. Collectively these religious leaders signed a “letter of protest,” which they collectively released to the media, protesting Senator Obama’s appearance as they felt his “pro-choice” views on abortion conflicted with the conservative Christian “pro-life” agenda.

Although condemned to death, I have earned a degree in Christian Theology – and even certification in evangelical teaching – and the Bible I am familiar with has one particular scriptural passage (Matthew 7:5, NIV) that says. “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.” These words are attributed directly to Jesus.

This is why I’ve come to hold such contempt for the conservative right and their so-called “moral majority.” They are all too often a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites. These same conservative “Christians” who call abortion “murder” will slobber at the mouth like rabid dogs when preaching their support for capital punishment. If we want to preach about the “sanctity of life” then it has to encompass all life, not just the lives we choose to find worthy. We are not God.

Consistent studies have shown that it’s actually the so-called “liberals.” The “pro-choice” segment of our society that opposes capital punishment while the strongest support for the death penalty comes from these hypocrites who dare label them selves “pro-life!” But this is a no brainer… how can you dare to call yourself “pro-life” of you support the deliberate death of any person? Murder is Murder.

With a growing epidemic of wrongful convictions now being exposed because of the use of DNA evidence and already over 130 documented cases of wrongfully convicted innocent men and women condemned to death, there no longer is any question that innocent men and women are being sentenced to death. See, ”Southern Injustice: Condemning An Innocent Man.” So, advocating the death penalty means advocating the execution if innocent men and women.

Please tell me – how can anyone who calls them self “pro-life” also support the death penalty? By supporting the death penalty you support a system that will inevitably, by deliberate design, murder an innocent victim. We can’t have it both ways – if this is truly about the practicing the sanctity of life and protecting the innocent from being put to death, then those who call themselves pro-life must just as zealously oppose the death penalty, protecting the innocent from being put to death.

The simple truth is that nobody respects a hypocrite – so don’t preach pro-life while actually practicing pro-death.

Mike Lambrix

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Christmas in a Cage - Death Row Holiday

Growing up in a large family Christmas was always celebrated in the traditional Norman Rockwell style with many brothers and sisters both older and younger than myself, the excitement and anticipation of Christmas began immediately after Thanksgiving, when dear old dad would pull out all the holiday lights from the cardboard boxes concealed in the attic and spread them out across the floor as us kids would compete with each other to find any burnt out bulbs that needed replacing. Once that task was completed, it would be an honor to hold the long strands of lights as dad balanced precariously on a ladder nailing them along the roof overhangs, then as if by magic seemingly always just at the right moment as darkness began we would all gather to watch as they came to life. In that moment of unified silence the Spirit of Christmas became one with us.

Then would come the tree. Never but never an artificial tree, not in our house. Even in the years when there would barely be enough money for food, there was always a large freshly cut evergreen tree, with the scent of pine filling the room. Boxes of beautiful antique ornaments handed down through the generations would be carefully unwrapped and meticulously placed in just the right spot with rows of tiny flashing multicolored lights accented by a million strands of silver and gold tinsel, almost each strand carefully dropped over the boughs by us kids leaving the lower part of the tree with significantly more than the harder to reach upper branches, but no body even complained.

This majestic Christmas tree would always be up no later than the first week of December and then brightly wrapped boxes would begin to appear beneath the tree. That was the Christmas tease that has tormented children through the ages… What could possibly be in these beautiful boxes? Of course, children being children, we would all find a way to ever so very carefully steal a peek in that one of two particular box with our name only to almost without exception discover that the box contained nothing more than clothes. Silly kids – we already knew that only Santa Claus brought the good stuff and that wouldn’t happen until Christmas Eve.

Each Christmas Eve all of us kids would be herded off to bed early and given a stern warning that soon Santa Claus would be near and he’d know for sure if we weren’t sleeping. Of course we couldn’t sleep but each of us in our own way did our very best to pretend to as we each fantasized about what Santa might leave us. The hours would pass slowly – very, very slowly – until the early morning hours when dad would open the bedroom doors, releasing us from our rooms with the excited announcement that Santa had come and we would all rush into the living room and stand in awe at the piles and piles of presents that had been left beneath the tree.


No matter what each of us received in that moment of time it became our entire world. Of course there would be the obligatory clothes, which were inevitably piled neatly to the side, to be collected later. Although we seldom got the toys we really wanted – apparently Santa Claus had a cash flow problem and couldn’t afford the most popular toys – what we got quickly made us forget about what we thought we wanted and the joy of receiving those gifts overcame any disappointment.

Looking back, I can’t recall even being disappointed at not receiving what I thought I wanted, as what I got always seemed to be even better. That’s why I knew even long after other kids my age gave up that Santa had to be real; dad couldn’t possibly afford all those wonderful presents. Only too many years later did I realize how much he would willingly sacrifice each year to make Christmas special, working long hours at the steel plant and even pawning off his few prized possession as nothing was ever allowed to break the sanctity of Christmas.

Soon after all the gifts were unwrapped we would be forced to set them aside and retreat back into our rooms to dress in our Sunday best then pile in the station wagon for a drive to the Christmas service. Even the thought of resisting this ritual seemed silly – marching into church as a family each Christmas morning was as much a part of Christmas as Christmas itself even of we didn’t fully understand the spiritual implications of Christmas at that time. But even as the priest administered the solemn sermon, already our thoughts were on the fest that would soon follow.

Within a few hours we were home again. The Christmas Spirit filled the house with a joyous mood as Christmas carols played endlessly on the record player and our attention turned from the gifts we already received to plots of pilfering the table piled high with cakes and candies laid out for guests that might drop by. With military precision us kids would band together and recon the living room then slowly sneak our way towards that table and careful not to let our presence be known, our little heads would pop up quickly as our hands reached for that morsel of sweet goodness and then a quick retreat would be made.

As all the dishes of cookies, candies, and cakes would slowly disappear the smell of Christmas dinner would fill the house. Without exception Christmas dinner would be provided with abundance in the traditional style with all the trimmings and the family would gather around the expanded table and eat. This was the one meal when no matter how dysfunctional the family was the rest if the year, we were truly family for that one meal. But then it would too soon be over and that one special day became only a memory.

These memories continue to be my Christmas and have become my ritual. Merle Haggard once sung a song about a man turning 21 in prison doing life without parole. My own ballad would not be that much different. I’ve never had another Christmas since leaving home. At 46 years old, this is now my twenty-sixth Christmas in a cage; the past 23 Christmas’ have been spent condemned to death in a cage on death row.

It is the Christmas of the past that remains my Christmas of the present. Being condemned to death I am not allowed to celebrate Christmas in any traditional sense. In the early years I would anxiously await the Christmas cards from family and friends, then hang each upon my cell wall and share the Spirit of Christmas with the few who chose to remember me. But as the years slowly passed the cards became fewer and fewer, even most of my brothers and sisters have now long forgotten me and given me up as dead. Although I remain blessed by a few special friends who make a point of sharing their Christmas Spirit with me, the friends too slowly drift away and become fewer and fewer.

Many years ago when I first came to death row we were allowed to celebrate Christmas and it was something we looked forward to. Each December we would be allowed to receive two packages from the outside world containing various necessities such as winter clothes, a pair of shoes, cosmetics and toiletries, and even a nice watch or ring. Then the Christmas meal would be traditional style, real turkey with all the trimmings and various pieces of cakes and pies. But then conservative politicians found out about the “special treatment” given to prisoners at holidays and made political careers by campaigning against these things. One by one every holiday privilege was eliminated and out of vindictive malice and spite the Spirit of Christmas was banned from prisons.

Where I once proudly displayed the few cards I’d receive on my otherwise barren grayish beige wall, I am now prohibited from doing so. Up until a few years ago I had a photo of a beautiful Christmas tree I’d tape to my back wall above my sink until one Christmas Eve a guard made an issue of it. I was ordered to remove it, but refused. A few hours later as I was taking a shower that guard went into my cell and removed that picture – ripping it into small pieces then throwing it into my toilet. That one small semblance of Christmas I so cherished was lost forever as that Spirit of Christmas was overcome by malice and spite.

Now each Christmas becomes more depressing as I become even more isolated from that world outside. Too often my thoughts now turn to my own kids and grandkids and wishing I could spend just one Christmas with them. All my own children are now grown, but I can only imagine the joy on my grandson’s face as he anxiously rips open the brightly wrapped box containing the small gift a friend so generously sent in my name.

Then I think of all the others here and in prisons across the country who like me can only think of Christmas’ past, as the Christmas of both present and future no longer even hold the hope of what the true Spirit of Christmas is about. I remain blessed by the few cards I will receive, but know that many others around me won’t get a card at all. There will be no Christmas sweets and treats. There will only be the same cold, barren walls and the sound of silence as each of us retreat into our own dreams of what once was and most likely will never be again.

So, this Christmas I ask you to remember what the true Spirit of Christmas really is as we gather to celebrate the birth of a men condemned to death for our sins, that through His condemnation each of us equally were given the gift of Hope. If those of us who claim to be Christian cannot actually be Christians on Christmas, then when can we be?

What would Jesus do of He were to celebrate Christmas today? I’d like to think that He would reach out to the lowest of the low and share hope with those condemned to death; that in the true Spirit of Christmas, in the true Spirit of Christ. Especially those condemned would not be forgotten.

To both friend and stranger equally the same, I say… Merry Christmas!!!

Michael Lambrix

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Countdown To An Execution

There is something uniquely surreal about sitting in a death row cell watching your television as virtually every local station out of Jacksonville and Gainesville all cover the “Countdown To An Execution” live from outside the prison.

It’s a circus of its own peculiar morbid design but fortunately seldom seen. The parade of pretty people in front of their camera’s telling the story of the soon to be killed killer doesn’t come in droves except when someone of special status is to be executed.

Today it is the infamous Danny Rolling, a pathetic man in his own right who had pled guilty to five murders in the Gainesville area a dozen years ago. That entitled him to being labeled a “serial killer” and those killing not only defined his life but also will now define his meticulously and deliberately inflicted death.

What does that say about us? Have we really come that far from the days when we gathered outside local county courthouses to watch a public hanging in the town square? Or even a midnight lynching at an old oak tree?

Thanks top the media the ritual of execution is now carried to out living rooms. The bleached blonde reporters will walk you through it, all competing with each other to provide a graphic description of the moments leading up to that execution and as the clock ticks down they will hold your attention by telling you to watch the backdoor of the wing housing the death chamber as once the execution has been carried a prison employee will appear at that door and wave a towel, a white towel, signifying that the execution has now been carried out. For long moments the viewer will watch in silent anticipation, waiting for that sign yet another person has been put to death.

Although disgusted by the pathetic circus, I watch too. I had a personal connection as I knew Danny Rolling – I lived in close proximity to him for many years. Perhaps I knew him netter than any of them now congregated at the prison to watch him die. I never knew him as a killer – I knew him as a fellow inmate. I didn’t judge him by acts of momentary violence against innocent victims, but by years of interaction, seeing him as a person with obvious mental issues and personality flaws. In my world we all have issues –I’ve been on death row now for so long that my issues have developed issues of their own.

Did I mention that I’m disgusted by the spectacle the media is making of this? How can we not be disgusted by the organized and intentional celebration of the death of another human being? What does it say about us as a society when we gather around to watch another man being deliberately put to death?

After the circus is over will any of his victims be brought back to life? What exactly is accomplished by putting the man to death? Certainly by now we know that these so called serial killers feed off public attention, so doesn’t all this attention only inspire other pathetic losers to gain their own fame by killing even more? Is it just a coincidence that the increase in the number of “serial killers” corresponds directly with the increase of the public attention we provide them? Take away their spotlight and what motivation will be left? By making a media circus of Danny Rolling’s execution today. How many more innocent people will die at the hands of other serial killers out to gain their fame?

Here’s another thought… when was the last time you saw these swarms of media trucks gather outside a prison to cover the release of an innocent man? Since we cranked up the killing machine in recent years there’s been over 130 men and women exonerated and released from death row after being wrongfully convicted and condemned to death. When was the last time you saw the media gather at the gates of a prison to cover the release of an innocent man? In 23 years I’ve never seen it – not even once.

We accept serial killers are “sick,” but are we not as equally sick by wanting to watch them be methodically put to death? As we celebrate their death aren’t we doing the same thing we’ve condemned them to death for? How many of us have ever shown the same level of interest in advocating the release of an innocent man as we do in advocating the death of a presumably guilty man?


Today “We the people” put Danny Rolling to death and many celebrated by participating in the media circus that covered every detail. But where will these people be tomorrow when yet another innocent man walks out of prison alone and already forgotten? What does that say about us? Every circus has its clowns – today “We the people” became the clowns.

Did you hear of how he actually sang a Christian gospel song as his final statement? It's hard to deal with the freaking circus they make of it -- it's all so one sided as the media competes to come up with the best sound bite to graphically portray the death of a "monster." Even if we were to assume that he was a monster, maybe we should ask what it was or who created that monster? And what is the difference between him stalking his victims and those who make careers out stalking the death of condemned men and women? Are not both ultimately defined by the end result -- they brought about, by deliberate design and intent, the death of another human being.

When "we, the people" killed Danny Rolling it only made monsters out of all of us as we ultimately did the very same things we condemned him to death for. Only we made our victim suffer under the threat of inevitable death for years and being in solitary confinement awaiting the uncertainty of your fate really is a lot like having a gun held to your head.

Just so you don't get too comfortable with that, with each new appeal you build up the hope of a reprieve as if the gun might just be lifted, but instead the courts deny you -- as if they're recocking the gun and pulling the trigger like a game of Russian roulette. When they pull the trigger at the end of that next appeal, will that be the round that kills you? Or will it be the next one?

It's really the prolonged uncertainty that describes why capital punishment is "cruel and unusual" as if that Constitutional concept even has any meaning in our contemporary society.

Michael Lambrix

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Check out my website www.southerninjustice.net

The New Face of Bigotry

There is an insidious epidemic of injustice in America, a malignant plague of moral and ethical corruption that is eating away at the integrity of our judicial system from within, undermining any confidence our society can have in our judicial system itself.
Is our contemporary use of capital punishment being maliciously exploited by the new face of bigotry as morally and ethically corrupt prosecutors and judges deliberately manipulate the judicial system to convict and condemn innocent men and women for no other purpose but to unscrupulously advance their own political agendas? Are the poor and underprivileged now the new faces of victims of morally intolerable discrimination, especially in the Deep South, as these politically ambitious parasites willfully send innocent men and women to death row, condemning them not because they are guilty of a crime, but because of their inability to defend against the charges.
In recent years over 125 men and women have been exonerated and released from death rows across the country after being found by the courts to have been wrongfully convicted and condemned to death. What do virtually all of these victims of injustice have in common? Every one of these men and women were poor and underprivileged, financially incapable of defending against the relatively infinite resources of the state. How many of these victims of the ultimate injustice were deliberately targeted for prosecution not because of a good faith belief in their guilt, but because of their impoverished status; they were easy to convict in spite of innocence?
The undeniable truth is that there are two distinct systems of law and justice in this country – there is justice for the rich and there is justice for the poor. When it comes to “justice” in America, you get what you pay for. On one hand we watch as those of wealth and privilege accused of horrific crimes buy their justice with multi million dollar “dream team” defenses while at the opposite extreme we consistently see the poor and underprivileged being victimized by a judicial system that has grown increasingly indifferent, even openly hostile, to the basic concepts of fundamental fairness and equality of all men before our Courts of Law.
Even if unquestionably guilty (much less actually innocent!) those of wealth and privilege are almost never condemned to death. In our system in which justice is supposedly “blind,” it certainly recognizes the smell of money as capital punishment in America is reserved exclusively for the lumpenproletariats of our society – the lowest of low, only the poor and underprivileged. What is the difference between racial prejudice and socio-economical prejudice? As a progressively maturing society we have grown justifiably intolerant of racial prejudice, recognizing bigotry for the morally destructive malignancy that it is. Where once in the not so distant past our Courts even found slavery to be constitutional, today our contemporary judicial system rightfully – if not obviously belated – recognizes as a matter of moral conscience and judicial integrity a contempt for racially motivated injustices.
But has our seemingly inherent need to hate actually only evolved into a less visible but equally insidious means of practicing discrimination by now embracing a socio-economical bias in our administration of justice, which invites unethical prosecutors to deliberately target the poor and underprivileged and unjustly convict, and even condemn them to death, in spite of innocence?
The administration of “justice” is defined as the action, or principle, of treating all persons equally and fairly in accordance with the law. Constitutional due process demands the preservation and practice of equality and fairness within our judicial system. Ultimately, any society is not judged by the privileges afforded those of wealth, but by the protections provided to the very least of society against the arbitrary and unfair actions of government.
When our judicial system cannot – or will not – protect the very least if our citizens against prejudicially motivated injustices resulting in the unconscionably high rate of wrongfully convicted and condemned men and women as evidenced by a consistent, self-evident pattern of socio-economical bias, then that intolerable deprivation of equality under the law constitutes a pervasive moral corruption that will inevitably eat away at the very soul of our society, ultimately undermining the fundamental foundation upon which our democracy remains precariously balanced.

Does Innocence Really Even Matter?
What if you are the deliberate victim of an unethical, overzealous prosecutor who maliciously uses his power of office to manipulate – even fabricate—wholly circumstantial evidence with the calculated intent to have you wrongfully convicted and condemned to death in spite of your innocence? What few people realize is that our United States Supreme Court has given even corrupt prosecutors “absolute immunity” – that as long as they are acting in a prosecutorial capacity they can intentionally fabricate evidence and even conspire with and coerce witnesses to commit perjury to deliberately have an innocent man wrongfully convicted and condemned to death, and remain absolutely immune from accountability. Imber v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976) There is a common misconception that after a person is convicted and condemned to death every capital case is thoroughly reviewed by the appellate courts to ensure specifically that the person is actually guilty of the alleged crime. That is absolutely not true! By law, the courts are only authorized to review specifically raised claims of alleged error. The burden is upon the condemned to prove that error was sufficient enough to have resulted in the deprivation of a “fair trial.” A claim of actual innocence by itself cannot be raised or reviewed as our Supreme Court has unequivocally declared that our Constitution only guarantees a “fair trial” – it does not prohibit the states from executing an innocent person. Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390 (1993) If you are wrongfully convicted and condemned to death for a crime you are innocent of – even if God himself and a council of twelve archangels were to miraculously appear before the Supreme Court to attest your actual innocence – the Courts are legally prohibited from vacation that conviction merely because you are innocent.
The entire system of appellate review is inherently dependent upon the condemned prisoner receiving competent legal representation not only at trial, but throughout the entire post conviction review process as any claims of alleged error must be properly – and timely – presented to the courts for review. Any failure to fully comply with the myriad of technically complex rules applicable to capital appellate review results in strictly enforced procedural defaults that prohibit a court from reviewing that alleged error; Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722 (1991). Even when newly discovered evidence conclusively proving your actual innocence is not properly raised by competent legal council within applicable time limitations the courts are prohibited from reviewing the evidence.
Since only the poor and underprivileged are sentenced to death, once a person is wrongfully convicted and condemned to death for a crime they are innocent of, they become entirely dependent upon the system to provide them with the legal representation necessary to raise their claims of alleged error. However, the Supreme Court has declared that indigent death sentenced prisoner do not have any right to appointment of legal counsel once a conviction has been affirmed on initial review. In fact, the Court held that a condemned prisoner has no right to legal representation at all in post conviction proceedings. Murray v. Giarratano, 402 U.S. 1 (1988).
Most states accept that they cannot “morally” carry out an execution unless the condemned prisoner is technically represented by legal counsel; so the states create politically controlled agencies to represent the condemned (See, “A Matter of Law and Death,” St. Petersburg Times, April 10, 2006) which then arguably by deliberate intent and design appoint inexperienced and even pathetically incompetent lawyers. Intentionally reducing post conviction review to nothing more that a pathetically superficial pretense with the objective of expediting executions by circumventing meaningful review of capital convictions. Does innocence really even matter? No, innocence is not even a legitimate legal issue once you’ve been wrongfully convicted and condemned to death. As our U.S. Supreme Court plainly said, our Constitution—our American judicial system – does not prohibit the conviction and subsequent execution of an innocent person.

Legally Sanctioned Lynching
Where not so long ago the Deep South was infamously known for its white sheets and midnight lynching today’s contemporary bigots now were tailored suits and manipulate the judicial system into carrying out their legally sanctioned lynching. When we consistently see that it is only the poorest that are being wrongfully convicted and condemned to death, especially in the small towns of the South, can we any longer deny that this malignancy of socio-economical prejudice is presently being openly practiced within our judicial system today – and even being facilitated and condoned at the highest levels of our judiciary?
The simple truth is that although most are honorable and serve with integrity, just as there are bad cops, there are bad prosecutors. Accountability weeds out the “bad apples” in law enforcement and preserves the integrity of the law enforcement system as a whole. But in our judicial system morally and ethically corrupt prosecutors who deliberately convict and condemn innocent people by maliciously using fabricated evidence, coerced false testimony, and willfully violate the most basic rights of the criminal defendant are not being held accountable. If the “bad apples” are not removed from our judicial system, inevitably they will rot the whole bunch.
In Florida alone at least 25 men and women have been exonerated and released from death row – the majority of whom were wrongfully convicted and condemned to death because of deliberate prosecutorial misconduct, yet not even once has the prosecutor responsible for unethically perpetuating these inconceivable injustices been held accountable.
Florida by far leads the country in the staggering number of men and women wrongfully convicted and condemned to death in a large part because a single State Attorney’s Office (Twentieth Judicial Circuit) has the highest rate of wrongful capital convictions in the entire country.
Comprised of mostly rural, small farming communities of Southwest Florida (Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry, and Lee Counties) this single office alone has already sent at least five innocent men to death row, all subsequently found to have been wrongfully convicted and condemned to death, and ordered released by the courts. (Delbert Tibbs, James Richardson, Bradley Scott, John Landry, and John Ballard). Examination of these cases shows a consistent pattern of manipulating the judicial system with flagrant disregard for ethical constraints and a flagitious contempt for justice.
Is this is a rats nest of state sanctioned serial killers methodically preying upon the poor and underprivileged, deliberately and insidiously victimizing those incapable of defending against the over whelming resources and power of the state? Incredibly, to this day there has not been a single investigation into why this one office has such a staggering rate of wrongful convictions. How many more innocent victims of injustice remain in prison – even on death row – as a result of unethical prosecution by this state attorney’s office?
John Ballard was the most recent exoneree released from Florida’s death row after being convicted and condemned to death in a wholly circumstantial case (no eyewitnesses, no physical or forensic evidence, no confession, etc) by the 20th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office top prosecutor, Deputy Assistant State Attorney, Randall McGruther. In 2006 the Florida Supreme Court threw out the convictions and ordered the release of Ballard after thoroughly examining the specious circumstantial evidence, concluding that there was no credible evidence sufficient to support any conviction.
Randall McGruther received his job as top prosecutor, the Deputy Assistant State Attorney for the 20th Judicial Circuit, by his long time personal friend the elected State Attorney, Steve Russell shortly after McGruther was alleged to have attempted to improperly coerce a witness into signing a fabricated affidavit in a criminal case. With the proverbial fox guarding the hen house, is it any surprise that no formal charges of misconduct were ever brought against McGruther?
But it is McGruther’s personal prosecution of another wholly circumstantial capital case that best illustrates the absence of integrity and ethical constraint in that office. It is that case that provides a graphic portrait of the epitome of a Southern Injustice by illustrating how relatively easy it is for corrupt agents of the state to maliciously fabricate a capital case with deliberate intent to send an innocent men to death row – and the morally despicable lengths these state agents will subsequently go to in an effort to prevent the truth of that unconscionable injustice from being exposed.
The integrity of our judicial system is inherently dependent upon the integrity of those we empower to enforce our laws. An examination of the staggering numbers of cases in which innocent men have been wrongfully convicted and condemned to death in the 20th Judicial Circuit of Florida shows that each of these men were poor and underprivileged, incapable of defending against the resources of a morally and ethically corrupt office.
This is the new face of bigotry and injustice in the South, where simply being poor is enough to target a man for a legally sanctioned lynching.

The Epitome of a Southern Injustice

Have you read John Grisham’s most recent bestseller “The Innocent man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town”? In this book Grisham tells the true-life tragic story of how a once promising baseball player was wrongfully convicted and condemned to death in a small town in Oklahoma. For almost eleven years Ron Williamson remained on death row before finally being exonerated by DNA evidence and released.
But as Grisham’s book shows, at least as equally traumatic as the injustice of being wrongfully convicted and condemned to death is the subsequent inevitable psychological degradation of being unjustly warehoused in long-term solitaire confinement under extremely oppressive and inhumane conditions, never for a moment allowed to forget that you are there only to die. That interminable state of prolonged uncertainty of your fate is the truly irreversible infliction imposed upon the wrongfully condemned.
At 48 years old Mike Lambrix has now spent most of his entire adult life (25 years) on Florida’s death row for a crime he is innocent of. In early 1983, Lambrix moved to rural Glades County to take a job as a farm mechanic. A stranger in a small southern town, Lambrix soon found himself charged in a locally sensationalized double homicide, then indicted on two counts of a capital crime.
At the time Randall McGruther was a relatively inexperienced, but ambitious, small town prosecutor anxious to make a name for himself. Even with no eyewitnesses, no physical or forensic evidence, and no confessions, before Lambrix was even arrested McGruther was publicly proclaiming his own specious theory that this monster had meandered into their midst, maliciously luring an innocent couple to an isolated area, and then brutally killing them in a sick and senseless crime.
Lambrix was appointed a young public defender with no prior experience handling a capital case and the pretense of justice began. Having succeeded in working the local community into a bloodthirsty frenzy with outrageous exaggerated stories McGruther then strenuously opposed moving the trial out of Glades County. The case was presided over by Judge Richard Stanley, himself formally a local prosecutor with a reputation for contempt towards capital defendants and an overzealous advocate of the death penalty, See, Porter v. State, 728 So 2d 191 (Fla. 1998)(recognizing Judge Stanley’s extreme bias.)
An all white jury was seated to hear the case that included four jurors directly related to members of the local sheriff’s office – including the stepfather of a local deputy who at the time of trial was under an active FBI investigation for brutally assaulting Lambrix in the two-cell county jail only a few months earlier.
McGruther opened the state’s case by conceding to the jury that the entire case was built upon the testimony of Lambrix’s own ex-girlfriend, Frances Smith, who had accompanied Lambrix to a local bar that fateful night where by chance they had met this “couple.” After many hours of drinking the four ended up at Lambrix’s remote residence where – McGruther arguing his own fallaciously fabricated theory – Lambrix then maliciously lured each out one at a time, them brutally murdered them before “forcing” Francis Smith to assist in superficially concealing the two bodies and fleeing the area.
Smith testified that although she did not actually see Lambrix commit any crime, he later told her that he deliberately killed the two to steal their car; her testimony was then corroborated by Deborah Hanzel, (Smith’s own cousin’s girlfriend) who testified Lambrix also told her he had killed them to take their car.
The jury was not allowed to hear that Smith had actually told law enforcement officials numerous other stories prior to trial that directly conflicted with her trial testimony and that she also had failed a state administered polygraph test. Additionally, the jury was not allowed to hear that the male victim was a career criminal and “known drug smuggler” with a history of violently assaulting women and had only recently met the young local waitress killed a few days earlier. See, Lambrix v. State, 494 So.2d 1143 (Fla. 1986)
Following a disagreement over the defense strategy, Lambrix’s counsel compelled the Judge to prohibit Lambrix from personally testifying thus Smith’s claims of what Lambrix allegedly said went unchallenged. See, Lambrix v. Singletary, 72 F. 3d 1500 (11th Cir. 1996) No defense was presented beyond the argument that substantial reasonable doubt existed as the specious theory argued by McGruther plainly contradicted the evidence and the key witness was conspiring to have her estranged ex-boyfriend (Lambrix) wrongfully convicted and condemned to death. But McGruther argued there was no actual evidence of any conspiracy. See, A Parody Of Justice (St. Petersburg Times, August 31, 1997)
That evidence of an actual conspiracy and collaboration between the key witness and the state attorney’s office to, by deliberate intent and design, have Lambrix wrongfully convicted and condemned to death would remain intentionally concealed for many years, but inevitably the truth has a way of coming out. (For a complete chronological account of this case please see, www.southerninjustice.net )
In 1988 Lambrix came within hours of execution after a “death warrant” was signed, but he received a “stay” so that the Federal Court could review his appeals. By 1997 the Federal Courts denied his appeals, and in a 5 to 4 vote the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Lambrix’s death sentences even though recognizing Lambrix was unconstitutionally sentenced to death upon finding that Lambrix’s appointed counsel failed to properly present the claims. See, Lambrix v. Singletary, 520 U.S. 518 (1997)
As Lambrix prepared to be moved back to “death watch” with little hope of stopping the now anticipated execution, astonishing new evidence came forth from an unexpected source when former state witness Deborah Hanzel, in an act of “conscience,” admitted that her trial testimony was false. In a subsequent affidavit and under sworn oath she was even more explicit – she was coerced to provide false testimony by the key witness Smith and the investigator for the state attorney’s office, and that an actual conspiracy to fabricate false evidence existed with the intent of having Lambrix wrongfully convicted. As Lambrix’s attorneys immediately initiated an investigation into Hanzel’s claims, that a deliberate conspiracy existed to wrongfully convict Lambrix, even more startling evidence was discovered. Shortly before a court hearing in 2004 Lambrix’s attorneys unexpectedly received information that while Lambrix was being prosecuted, the key witness – his estranged ex-girlfriend Frances Smith – was actually having a secret relationship “of a sexual nature” with the state attorney’s own lead investigator, Robert Daniels. Under oath in court, confronted with this information Smith reluctantly admitted it was true. Investigator Daniels was not only the lead investigator in the local state attorney’s office. He was also the very person who signed the affidavit originally initiating these charges against Lambrix, then personally supervised the development of the wholly circumstantial evidence used at trial to corroborate Smith’s otherwise unsupported allegations.
A top expert in homicide investigations was retained to independently re-examine the case and concluded that the state’s entire theory was based upon fabricated and deliberately manipulated evidence – that there was no credible evidence to support the theory McGruther argued to the jury. Additionally, two former state medical examiners reviewed the original medical examiner’s autopsy reports and found no evidence to support the state’s conclusions. Not surprisingly, fingernail scrapings taken from the female victim that would have allowed DNA tests to conclusively show who killed her conveniently disappeared. See, An Uncertain Capital Case (St. Petersburg Times, July 11, 2004)
As evidence that McGruther personally participated in the now revealed conspiracy and collaboration to have Lambrix wrongfully convicted and condemned to death was developed, after over 20 years of making a career out of methodically stalking Lambrix’s unjustified execution, McGruther was compelled to disqualify himself from the case for “ethical” reasons – but handpicked his personal friend and colleague Assistant State Attorney Cynthia Ross to now continue pursuing the execution of Lambrix.
With the evidence and motive now revealed, exposing this deliberate conspiracy and collaboration to, by intent and design, have Lambrix wrongfully convicted and condemned to death additional evidence recently disclosed now also shows that the state attorney’s office had concealed an “immunity deal” made with the key witness Smith that protected her from prosecution for felony charges pending against her.
Even with this overwhelming evidence now substantiated Lambrix’s long pled claims of innocence the state remains unwilling to concede any error. Rather than allow justice to finally prevail, the local state attorney’s office is now assisted by one of Florida’s most experience capital appellate litigator, Florida’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar. Unable to any longer credibly challenge the validity of the collective evidence, both the state agents and the lower trial court are engaging in a campaign to disingenuously drag this case out and prevent full exposure of this unconscionable injustice. In July 2006 the state offered Lambrix a substantial reduction of sentence if Lambrix would drop all further appeals – Lambrix refused. How much longer must Lambrix suffer this injustice?
What Can You Do?
There is a systematic pattern of morally and ethically corrupt prosecutors pathologically targeting the poor and underprivileged of our society, maliciously manipulating the judicial system to intentionally convict and condemn innocent men and women, then exploiting the resources of the state to perpetuate the already inconceivable injustice. Can we continue to deny that this insidious epidemic of injustice represents a contemporary form of malignant socio-economical discrimination and our refusal to recognize and eradicate this cancerous plague of bigotry and injustice from our society is as equally immoral as if we were personally participating in the lynching of the innocent ourselves?
In confronting the moral corruption of bigotry and injustice Abraham Lincoln once said, “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Until society itself starts to demand accountability this contemptuous corruption of injustice will continue as morally and ethically corrupt prosecutors empower themselves as state sanctioned serial killers.
Only by committing ourselves to standing up to fight individual injustices can the integrity of justice itself prevail. The Lambrix case is only one of too many examples of inconceivable injustices being perpetuated against those incapable of defending against the overwhelming resources of the state.
In the late 1980’s there was a similar case from the same small area, that of James Richardson. He was convicted and sentenced to death for allegedly poisoning all his children to collect the insurance money but had his sentence reduced to life. While in prison he gathered support that led to Governor Martinez appointing Janet Reno who was then a state attorney in Miami, to conduct an independent investigation that resulted in her finding the case was corrupted by fabricated circumstantial evidence. This led to Richardson’s eventual release. Please help us push for a similar independent investigation and fair review of the Lambrix case by writing or emailing the Governor (Charlie Crist) and the Attorney General (Bill McCollum) of Florida to request the appointment of an objective special investigator like Governor Martinez did in the Richardson case. You can make a difference in compelling productive change by joining a grass roots drive to push for justice, to publicly expose these injustices and compel politicians and public officials to conduct investigations into corrupt prosecutors and hold them accountable.

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