Death Sentence Reinstated for Sensational 1966 Murder of Fla. Cattle Baron Von Maxcy

AP ^ | July 23, 2004

[nuconvert]

Death Sentence Reinstated for Sensational 1966 Murder of Fla. Cattle Baron Von Maxcy

By Coralie Carlson/Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) - Calling it "an extraordinary case" covering four decades, a federal appeals court Friday reinstated a conviction and death sentence in the 1966 contract murder of Sebring citrus and cattle baron Charles Von Maxcy. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that William Kelley "suffered no denial of his constitutional rights" when he was convicted of the murder of Maxcy, arranged by Maxcy's young wife through her lover.

U.S. District Court Judge Norman Roettger granted Kelley a new trial in 2002, saying that Hardy Pickard, the state prosecutor during the first trial, withheld basic evidence to secure a conviction.

The appeals court disagreed, saying "Kelley received a full and fair trial."

"This office is gratified by the 11th Circuit's decision, both because it reinstates the conviction of a guilty man and because it vindicates Hardy Pickard," said Chip Thullbery, a spokesman for prosecutors in the Polk County-based judicial circuit that includes Sebring in Highlands County.

"Hardy is an honorable prosecutor who did not deserve to be treated as he was by the district court judge," Thullbery said.

In its ruling, the appeals court acknowledged "that this is an extraordinary case." The state's "key witness was a reprehensible villain who literally got away with murder," and one of Kelley's attorneys, Harvey Brower, was "a disgraced and incompetent scoundrel" who had been disbarred in Massachusetts, the ruling said.

Kelley, of Massachusetts, was convicted in January 1984 of first-degree murder in the Oct. 3, 1966, stabbing and shooting death of Von Maxcy, 41, in his ranch home in south-central Florida, about 140 miles northwest of Miami. He was defended at different times by famed lawyers William Kunstler and Laurence Tribe.

Kelley's first trial ended with a hung jury. He was convicted in a second trial three months later, nearly two decades after the contract slaying.

John Sweet, the prosecution's star witness, testified at both trials that Von Maxcy's wife, Sweet's lover, had asked him to arrange the murder because she feared she would be left out of Von Maxcy's $1.7 million estate.

Sweet was originally convicted of the murder in a sensational trial that attracted national news coverage and was sentenced to life. A year later, Irene Von Maxcy admitted that she had lied on the stand about Sweet's involvement in her husband's murder and Sweet was set free.

Defense attorneys argued that Kelley had been falsely accused by Sweet, who named him 15 years after the killing. In return, Sweet received immunity from the Maxcy murder and from loan-sharking, counterfeiting and several other charges in Massachusetts.

Irene Von Maxcy served four years in prison for a perjury conviction stemming from her testimony in Sweet's trials.

[js1138]

We do 'em up right in Florida. We've got a good old one in St. Augustine also.

[Bonaparte]

Don't see a new execution date for William Kelley.

[Paleo Conservative]

Didn't the US Supreme Court rule in the early 1970s that the death penalty as it was applied at that time was uncontitutional? As I recall the death rows of all the states were emptied due to this ruling. If he was convicted in 1984 for the murder that was committed in 1966, then he had to have been convicted under the laws that existed in 1966.

I'm just curious how the federal courts ever let the death sentence stand at all in this case. How old is this convict now? If he committed murder in 1966 (almost 38 years ago), he couldn't be young.

[Bonaparte]

In 1966, when the murder was committed the death penalty was legal everywhere.

Kelley was convicted of the murder in 1984, long after the USSC went through its circus act in the 1970s, first finding the death penalty unconstitutional and then reversing itself several years later.

So none of the court's antics applied to his case.

Click my link in post 3.

[Bonaparte]

BTW, it may interest you to know that, among many other frivolous moves, Kelley tried challenging his death penalty sentence on the basis of an ex post facto objection.

Here are the brief comments on this from the Florida SC:

[24] We turn now to Kelley's argument that the application of the death penalty statute to a crime committed before its enactment in its present state is ex post facto. Although this claim was specifically rejected by the Supreme Court in Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 53 L. Ed. 2d 344, 97 S. Ct. 2290 (1977), Kelley argues that the issue should be reconsidered because Dobbert has been overruled by Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 96 L. Ed. 2d 351, 107 S. Ct. 2446 (1987).*fn5

[25] The Miller decision did not change the ex post facto analysis, as Kelley contends, nor did it in any way imply that Dobbert was no longer good law. Indeed, the Court in Miller referred to Dobbert several times as an example of a statutory change which did not violate ex post facto standards. Accordingly, we reject Kelley's argument that the ex post facto issue should be revisited.