Strike Four for Robert Carney By Bob Norman Thursday, Sep. 3 2009 @ 7:36AM So DNA tests seem to have exonerated another man wrongfully convicted by the State Attorney's Office for murder in Broward County. That makes at least seven of them.
"If I was Judge Carney," Finkelstein said, "I would spend every day of my retirement for the rest of my life in church praying for forgiveness for the innocent lives I destroyed as a prosecutor." Let's look at the cases, beginning with Smith, who had very limited mental ability and was nearly blind. Smith was convicted of raping and murdering a young girl. He pleaded his innocence to no avail and died on death row. Purvis spent ten years in prison before the two men really responsible were caught. In that case, Carney had cleared the two actual killers and never disclosed their existence to Purvis or his attorney. In Clugson's case, Carney actually gave immunity to the man later suspected to have been the actual killer. Do not think that prosecuting an innocent person is easy. It takes a lot of work and a very large set of blinders. I reviewed the entire Smith case, and the more I read it, the more infuriated I became at the actions of BSO detectives, who basically fixed the case, and Carney, who admitted he had a "minimal" case. The prosecutor had to suspect that Smith was at least very likely innocent. Carney was also involved in the outrageous case of John Purvis, who was convicted of raping and killing his 38-year-old neighbor, Susan Hamwi, and her 18-month-old daughter. After his conviction, new evidence came out indicating that the woman's husband may have been behind it. Carney, then a prosecutor, kept it hidden. From a 2003 Sun-Sentinel article:
Purvis broke down under police interrogation and confessed. Same for Caravella. In that case, there were at least two other viable suspects, including Cyril "Chip" Cozier. Here's a passage from a 2001 Sun-Sentinel story on the case:
Carney went on to prosecute Caravella -- a mentally challenged child -- based on a series of flimsy confessions that never made sense from the beginning. And finally, you have the Clugston case. In that one, Carney gave immunity to a man named Jessie Ziegenhagen in the 1981 murder case of Bryce Waldman. Ziegenhagen testified against Clugston, who was convicted and sent to prison, where he said he was raped and contracted HIV. In 1994, information came to light that Ziegenhagen may have actually committed the crime. Ziegenhagen was already dead, a murder victim himself, so there was no new trial. Then-Gov. Lawton Chiles granted clemency to Clugston. Clugston went to trial not once but three times, with Carney overseeing the first two that ended with hung juries. Carney didn't preside over the third in which Clugston was convicted. Carney was prosecutor at trial for Caravella but not Smith. The trial prosecutor for Frank Lee Smith was William Dimitrouleas, who told the jury in closing arguments that the Smith trial was a "fair American trial." Dimitrouleas is now a veteran federal judge. Hopefully Caravella will escape Frank Lee Smith's fate -- death in prison -- and will soon see freedom. For any hope of that, he can thank Broward County Chief Public Defender Diane Cuddihy, who fought hard for the DNA tests. Sun-Sentinel reporter Paula McMahon gives her newspaper some of the credit too by pointing out that the Sentinel referred Caravella's brother to the Public Defender's Office back in 2001. Actually, McMahan and former Sentinel reporter Ardy Friedberg both did fine work reporting on those cases. Everyone involved deserves to be commended. Carney, though, might want to start following Finkelstein's advice right about now. |
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