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Thread: Death Penalty Trial Set for Tony "TJ" Wiggins in 2020 FL Triple Slaying

  1. #11
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    DNA evidence found in Frostproof triple-slaying, detectives say

    By Suzie Schottelkotte
    The Ledger

    BARTOW – Not only has accused killer Tony Wiggins Jr.’s brother cast him as the gunman in July’s triple homicide near rural Lake Streety in Frostproof, but detectives now have found DNA evidence indicating he was there, according to court records.

    A shell casing found on the ground at the scene appears to have Wiggins’ DNA on it, according to a Polk County Sheriff’s Office report.

    “There is extremely strong support that Tony Lee Wiggins and two unknown persons contributed to this DNA profile, rather than three unknown persons,” a Sheriff’s Office report states, quoting the DNA analysis. The lab report states it’s 17 million times more probable that the sample included Wiggins’ DNA and that of two other unknown sources, than of three unknown sources.

    The casing was found near the rear tire of Damion Tillman’s red 1993 Chevrolet S10 pickup truck the night of July 17 – the same night Tillman, 23, and two longtime friends, Keven Springfield, 30, and Brandon Rollins, 27, were gunned down moments after they had met there for some night fishing.

    Wiggins, 26, of Frostproof stands accused of the killings, facing three counts of first-degree murder, along with tampering with evidence. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against him if he’s convicted of murder.

    Detectives said a chance meeting between Tillman and Wiggins, known as T.J., at a Dollar General store in Frostproof just before the fatal shootings led Wiggins to Lake Streety Road and to Springfield, who Wiggins accused of taking his truck.

    Nearly a week after the killings, detectives received a DNA report linking Wiggins’ brother to a shell casing found on the step of Brandon Rollins’ 2004 Ford F-150 pickup truck, court records show. Quoting the DNA analysis, Sheriff’s Office detectives stated in reports it was 96 million times more probable that the DNA profile on that casing originated from William Robert Wiggins, 21, who goes by Robert, and two other unknown sources.

    By the time detectives received that report, they already knew that Robert Wiggins was there when the three men were killed. He had told them, according to reports. Initially, he said neither he nor his brother had been involved, but when detectives told him the bullets used in the killings matched those found at the camper where T.J. Wiggins was living, he changed his story.

    Robert Wiggins said he was driving that night, and his brother told him to go to Lake Streety. When they got there, his brother got out and walked toward the three friends. Tillman was in his truck, and Springfield and Rollins were in the other one. They had pulled side by side to talk.

    Wiggins approached Springfield demanding to know where his truck was, then opened fire, the younger Wiggins said.

    They left the three men, bleeding and dying, and went to McDonald’s restaurant in Lake Wales, the Sheriff’s Office reported.

    Court records show the younger Wiggins hoped to cash in on the $30,000 reward by coming forward with details about the killings. Instead, he was taken into custody after giving his sworn statement.

    Nearly a week after the killings, detectives received a DNA report linking Wiggins’ brother to a shell casing found on the step of Brandon Rollins’ 2004 Ford F-150 pickup truck, court records show. Quoting the DNA analysis, Sheriff’s Office detectives stated in reports it was 96 million times more probable that the DNA profile on that casing originated from William Robert Wiggins, 21, who goes by Robert, and two other unknown sources.

    By the time detectives received that report, they already knew that Robert Wiggins was there when the three men were killed. He had told them, according to reports. Initially, he said neither he nor his brother had been involved, but when detectives told him the bullets used in the killings matched those found at the camper where T.J. Wiggins was living, he changed his story.

    Robert Wiggins said he was driving that night, and his brother told him to go to Lake Streety. When they got there, his brother got out and walked toward the three friends. Tillman was in his truck, and Springfield and Rollins were in the other one. They had pulled side by side to talk.

    Wiggins approached Springfield demanding to know where his truck was, then opened fire, the younger Wiggins said.

    They left the three men, bleeding and dying, and went to McDonald’s restaurant in Lake Wales, the Sheriff’s Office reported.

    Court records show the younger Wiggins hoped to cash in on the $30,000 reward by coming forward with details about the killings. Instead, he was taken into custody after giving his sworn statement.

    On July 30, two weeks after the shootings, detectives discovered through vehicle identification numbers that the engine in Tillman’s truck had come from T.J. Wiggins’ 2006 Chevrolet truck, which led them to Ernest Martinez in Frostproof. He said Wiggins had brought the truck to his father’s shop after they were told to leave the property where they were staying. Wiggins said he would pick it up the next day, but after six weeks went by, Martinez wanted to get rid of it, reports stated. Since Springfield had been helping at the shop, Martinez told detectives, he gave the truck to him, and never told the Wiggins brothers where it went.

    The day after discovering that Wiggins’ engine was in Tillman’s truck, detectives received more DNA evidence linking Wiggins with the killings – Tillman’s DNA was found on a seatbelt in Wiggins’ 2006 Chevrolet pickup, court records show.

    As the evidence continues to mount, one piece has eluded detectives – the gun used in the killings.

    Robert Wiggins told them his brother had broken the gun down as they left along Lake Streety Road, and had tossed the pieces into the thick underbrush along the lake. In the days following the shooting, crews scoured the area, first cutting away the vegetation with machetes and later using heavy equipment to clear it away. All the while, they combed the area using metal detectors, court records show. They came across a couple of blood-stained Dollar General bags, but no firearm, according to reports.

    T.J. Wiggins will be back in court Jan. 19 for a status conference, and his brother will return to the courtroom Dec. 8 for a pretrial hearing. The younger Wiggins has been charged with three counts of accessory after the fact in a capital felony and one count of tampering with evidence. If convicted, he faces up to 95 years in prison. Both brothers are being held in the Polk County Jail without bail.

    Also charged with three counts of accessory after the fact in a capital felony is T.J. Wiggins’ girlfriend, Mary Clare Whittemore, 27, who told detectives she was with the brothers when the shootings occurred but never left the truck.

    On Oct. 29, prosecutors added perjury to the charges against Whittemore on allegations she lied in her sworn testimony to the Polk County grand jury in September. If convicted on all counts, she could be sentenced up to 95 years in state prison. She, too, is being held without bail.

    https://www.theledger.com/story/news...ay/6442258002/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Related:

    'The worst kind of human conduct': Florida woman sent to prison for fake GoFundMe account to benefit families of triple-murder victims

    By Kimberley Moore
    The Ledger

    BARTOW, Fla. — A Florida woman who set up a fraudulent GoFundMe account that promised to support the families of three friends murdered last July has been sentenced to three years in prison.

    Amanda Lynn Brown, 33, was also ordered to repay $11,500 to GoFundMe, which had already refunded money to those who had contributed to the account she established after Kevin Springfield, Brandon Rollins and Damion Tillman were killed in Frpostproof, about 65 miles south of Orlando in Polk County.

    Brown used the money on shopping sprees, sent herself money via PayPal and paid off her Frostproof utility bill of nearly $1,400, according to a sheriff’s department investigation.

    “This is the worst kind of human conduct to try and profit from the horrible tragedy of a triple murder while taking advantage of wonderful people donating their hard-earned money to help those in distress,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said. “I hope she is miserable and thinks of her terrible conduct every day she is in prison.”

    Court officials said she made no statement at her sentencing and did not offer an apology to the families.

    “I just hope she thinks about what she done and what she done to our family,” said Dottie Payton, Rollins’ mother.

    Brown remains in the Polk County Jail, awaiting trial on unrelated drug charges.

    Tony "T.J." Wiggins, meanwhile, is charged in the triple homicide and faces the death penalty if convicted. Wiggins, of Frostproof, was arrested three days after the July 17 murders when a store receipt in Tillman’s truck led detectives to a surveillance video at a nearby Dollar General.

    https://www.freep.com/story/news/nat...er/7591154002/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #13
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    Judge denies bond for William 'Robert' Wiggins in 2020 triple slaying in Frostproof

    By Rebecca Lee
    The Ledger

    BARTOW – William "Robert" Wiggins, who faces charges related to the July 2020 triple slaying of three friends at a lake in Frostproof, was denied bond Tuesday by a judge who noted he had repeatedly violated court orders by communicating with his older brother, the accused gunman.

    Wiggins, 22, is charged with three counts of of accessory after the fact in a capital felony and one count of tampering with evidence. If convicted, he faces up to 95 years in prison. His older brother, Tony Lee "T.J." Wiggins, 26, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and faces the death penalty if convicted.

    The younger Wiggins was released on bond in August. But his bond was revoked by Circuit Judge Sites in September after he violated the terms of his pretrial release by repeatedly talking to his brother about the case on a recorded line in the Polk County Jail.

    Robert Wiggins had a bond hearing Tuesday that he attended virtually in which his lawyer, Graylin Chastang, requested that he be granted bond to help his father, Tony Wiggins Sr., 57, of Frostproof with transportation, property maintenance and finances as well as provide a stable residence for his son.

    Judge Melissa Gravitt denied his request.

    "There is no way to ensure the integrity of the judicial process under pretrial release conditions because Mr. Wiggins was being held under pretrial order and continued to violate the order of the court while in custody” Gravitt said Tuesday. “If he can't follow the order of the court while he’s in custody, I certainly have no assurance that he would follow it if he was out of custody.”

    In testimony Tuesday, Polk County Sheriff's Detective Alexander Tan said the Wiggins brothers frequently discussed the case and that the older brother and their father were attempting to apply pressure to Robert Wiggins to not testify against his brother.

    “In some of those phone calls, Robert and T.J. discussed future court dates, the charges laid against them, possible punishments, sentences,” Tan said. “They also talked about, T.J. talking to Robert, ‘Hey, talk to your attorney, let me know what you’re going to do,’ talking about a game plan if you would for these cases, as well as making statements about the location of certain items which one could interpret to be possible evidence.”

    Tan also testified about emails between T.J. and Robert Wiggins using their mother, Kimberly Keen, as a facilitator.

    “There’s a term called ‘boomeranging’ where an inmate who is in custody has access to a kiosk or jail emails and will send messages to someone on the outside," Tan said. "In this case, it was their mother, Kimberly Keen, and she will copy and paste that message and send it as an email to someone else in the jail. “In this case, being Robert’s brother, T.J. So, by using their mother as a facilitator, Robert is able to send a message to his mother who then sends a message to T.J. allowing T.J. and Robert to continue to communicate.”

    Questioning Tan, Chastang brought up multiple instances in which Robert Wiggins has cooperated and hasn’t been charged with perjury.

    Chastang later stated that Robert Wiggins has said he won't cooperate in the prosecution. And though the brothers did have contact in violation of the pretrial conditions, there was no conspiracy to present perjured testimonies or tampering with evidence discussed in their conversations.

    In State Attorney Mark Levine’s closing argument he explained why judges prohibit contact between co-defendants that can undermine the truth-seeking process. He also elaborated on why Sites ordered Robert Wiggins held without bond initially. With the only change in circumstances being Tony Wiggin Sr.’s needs, Levine said it doesn’t justify changing the no-bond hold on Robert Wiggins.

    “In fact, the defendant has exhibited, once again, from those jail emails, the continued communication and the continued desire to communicate,” Levine said.

    Outside the courtroom after the hearing, Sarah Springfield, wife of Keven Springfield, who was one of the three victims, expressed relief at the ruling and dismay for the defense's arguments in favor of bond.

    “They want to say something about how William, well Robert, has a child. What about Keven, who has kids?” she said. “Daniel’s 3, the twins, they’re going to be 2. They’ve been robbed of having a father in their life. I was robbed of having my husband. ... What about them that don’t have a dad anymore? He has older ones, they know who he is, but these three younger ones, they don’t know who he is. Daniel remembers pictures, that’s it.”

    https://www.theledger.com/story/news...er/8086556002/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Trial scheduled for man charged with 2020 triple slaying

    By Rebecca Lee
    The Ledger

    BARTOW — The trial of Tony Lee “T.J.” Wiggins Jr. has been set to begin April 3, 2023 by Judge Jalal Harb on Friday.

    Wiggins is charged with the July 2020 shooting deaths of Brandon Rollins, Damion Tillman and Keven Springfield as they prepared to go night fishing at a Frostproof lake.

    Wiggins, 27, faces three counts of first degree murder, tampering with physical evidence, possession of ammunition by a convicted felon and possession of firearm by a convicted felon. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

    https://www.theledger.com/story/news...ng/8378310002/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Defendants in the Frostproof killings appear in court as cases more forward

    By Paul Nutcher
    The Ledger

    The three defendants in the July 2020 Frostproof triple homicide case have all appeared in Polk County 10th Circuit Criminal Court in Bartow in recent days as each of their three separate cases moved closer toward a trial.

    The accused shooter Anthony Lee “T.J.” Wiggins, 28, appeared in court Friday before Judge J. Kevin Abdoney. His defense attorney Debra B. Tuomey had filed a motion to reschedule the April 3 trial, which Abdoney granted. The judge also set a status hearing for 8:15 a.m. Jan. 27 to go over deadlines for both sides as they prepare their cases. A new trial date could also be set.

    Wiggins has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder as the alleged gunman in the shooting deaths of Brandon Rollins, Keven Springfield and Damion Tillman as they were getting ready to go night fishing at a Frostproof lake.

    If found guilty, Wiggins could face the death penalty.

    Brandon Rollins' mother, Dottie Payton, described the hearing as “very tense” as representatives of all of the victims families sat Friday in the courtroom. She said most of the relatives were in tears.

    On Tuesday, Wiggins' brother, William Wiggins, appeared before Judge Lori A. Winstead and his case was continued. His defense attorney Cory Chastang said he and his client needed more time to prepare for a trial.

    No trial date has been set. The younger Wiggins, 24, is charged with three counts of accessory after the fact in a capital felony and one count of tampering with evidence.

    The third defendant, Mary Wittemore, 29, also appeared Tuesday before Winstead. Her attorney Jonathan Mills said more time was needed before he expected the trial to start.

    All three defendants have pleaded not guilty and remain in custody at the Polk County Jail.

    https://sports.yahoo.com/defendants-...090047968.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  6. #16
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    Death Penalty trial is rescheduled for next year.
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Defense attorney in 8 death penalty cases calls Polk jail policies unconstitutional

    By Paul Nutcher
    Lakeland Ledger

    A defense lawyer representing multiple Polk County defendants facing capital murder charges is trying to roll back jail policies that she alleges restrict communications with her clients awaiting trial at the county jail and violates their constitutional rights.

    A hearing is set for Jan. 9 to hear testimony and arguments in the 10th Judicial Circuit Court in Bartow on motions filed by Debra Tuomey.

    Ultimately, the policies restrict “effective” and “efficient” defense of her clients, Tuomey said in her motions, which could impact as many as eight death penalty cases pending in the court.

    Among her motions, she has asked Circuit Judge J. Kevin Abdoney to allow her and her defense team the use of their own laptops during consultations at the jail. They also have asked the court to allow their clients access to written “legal mail” instead of a scanned copy of the attorney-client letters.

    The Polk County Jail started looking into the use of a mail scanner, including legal correspondence between detainees at the jail and their lawyers, after a 2016 incident in which inmates were sickened through contraband that was unknowingly delivered to the jail by a lawyer on documents laced with chemicals, according to testimony at an October hearing. The jail policy toward attorneys bringing laptops and smart phones to client consultations also changed after the Sheriff's Office found that images taken inside the jail were posted to social media accounts.

    What’s in the motion?

    In the capital murder case of the State vs David Murdock, Tuomey filed a “motion for protective order and motion to compel reasonable access to counsel and digital evidence” on July 12. In it, she cites the U.S. Constitution’s First, Second, Fifth and 14th Amendments as well as corresponding rights in the Florida Constitution.

    Murdock is facing two counts of capital first-degree murder and is detained at the Polk County Jail in Frostproof. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office manages and maintains the jail.

    The Sheriff’s Office changed jail policy on Oct. 14, 2021, stating that attorneys were no longer allowed to use their own personal laptops when meeting with clients in secure housing and interview booths.

    “The (policy) letter specifies no professional visitor shall be allowed to bring a cell phone, camera, or smart device capable of transmitting or receiving calls or taking pictures inside the secure facility of interview booth,” Tuomey’s motion said.

    Further, detainees at the jail do not receive physical mail, which is also scanned but through a different software application. And when “legal mail” is sent, it is opened in the presence of the inmate and scanned into a legal mail account, the motion said. The detainee then views the correspondence via an online account.

    The detainees are required to stand and read the legal mail from one of three computer screens at kiosks inside the housing units where the screens can be seen by other inmates and detention deputies.

    A few years after the contraband incident had hospitalized some inmates, the jail started to research using a scanner to prevent contraband entering the jail via mail. The Sheriff’s Office entered into an agreement with Smart Communication Holdings Inc. of Seminole in a contract dated Dec. 9, 2022 for mail scanning.

    The legal mail policy violates Murdock’s “access to the courts, right to freedom of speech and his Sixth Amendment right to have unfettered confidential communication with his attorneys and defense team,” Tuomey wrote.

    Tuomey’s motion asks the court for an order preventing the Polk County Sheriff’s Office detention facility from scanning legal mail into the Smart Mail legal email account without the approval of the detainee’s lawyer. She wants the court to order that any legal mail already scanned be deleted and proof from the Sheriff’s Office that its servers and electronic devices have been sanitized.

    Further, Tuomey wants an order allowing Murdock’s defense team to have private visits alone and of a reasonable length of time. And she asks that the defense team be allowed to bring their own laptops.

    “The jail also allows offsite video professional visits, but such visitation is limited to a fifteen (15) minute session at a cost of $12.95 per session,” the motion said. These non-contact, in-person, professional visitations are available during three spans of visiting hours between 7:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. If an attorney arrives 30 minutes before the close of visiting hours, they are turned away.

    Tuomey filed the motion with the court after a mitigation specialist and member of Murdock’s defense team was told she could not bring her laptop into the visitation room and told to put it back in her vehicle, the motion said.

    In court in October, Abdony called the motions “prayers” and said he did not think the criminal court had jurisdiction to strike down the sheriff’s jail policy.

    “My basic observation is I have jurisdiction to do individual things in individual criminal cases but not to say whether a sheriff’s policy at a jail is going to stand or not,” Abdoney said.

    Tuomey had said in court filings that, in matters of constitutional law, the judicial branch of government was not stepping on the authority of the executive and legislative branches by ruling on her motion.

    “If the court finds that there is a constitutional violation by the Sheriff’s Office, then your honor does in fact have jurisdiction,” she said in court.

    'I don't know what's on the paper'

    The motions filed at the Bartow courthouse were deliberated during an afternoon hearing Oct. 13 before Abdoney.

    Murdock was one of eight defendants in the court on Oct. 13 claiming through their legal team that they cannot get effective and efficient representation because of the jail policies.

    The other death penalty defendants were Marlon Tyrone Burgess, Joshua Emanuell Badillo, Ernst Cherizard, Ladevon Rashon Cottingham, Regis Johnson and Antonio Davis.

    Tuomey had filed similar motions in the state’s cases against Tony "TJ' Wiggins, who is expected to stand trial in July in the slayings of three people in Frostproof in 2020; and Marcelle Jerrill Waldon, who is accused of the murders of two people at a Lake Morton Drive home in Lakeland. Waldon's trial is set to start on Jan. 15.

    Mario Cabrera, a lawyer for the Sheriff’s Office, squared off with Tuomey and her team during a nearly four-hour hearing.

    Among the witnesses to testify in October was Chief Michael Allen with the Sheriff’s Office. He oversees the agency’s two detention facilities, booking facility and inmate transportation, among other duties.

    Tuomey asked him about the processing of general and legal mail addressed to inmates and detainees at the jail.

    He described a “legal cart” as a device developed by Smart Communications for inmates to visit in a vestibule area separate from the jail’s housing unit, and it provides detainees and inmates access to legal correspondence with their lawyers.

    “On that cart, it has a computer, it has a scanner and it has a shredder,” Allen said. "It also has a screen that only the inmate can see. A deputy assigned to the legal cart brings the cart to the inmate and their legal mail is opened by the detainee in the presence of the deputy."

    The inmate scans their mail and can view it on the screen, Allen said, then has the option to keep the hard copy or shred it.

    Tuomey asked Allen what would happen if the detainee declined to scan the mail for storage on the Smart network. Allen said the mail would then be placed “in property,” which would only be returned to the detainee after leaving the jail.

    Allen said the shredding of mail started in 2019 in part because of the 2016 incident, when 13 inmates were exposed to chemicals on laced paper, including bug spray and methamphetamine. Four of them nearly died at the hospital, he said.

    “Once we found out, we looked for a solution to stop that from happening again,” Allen said. The Sheriff’s Office first looked at Smart Communications' mail system in November 2017 for regular mail.

    But then a defense lawyer unknowingly passed laced documents to an inmate and then the Sheriff’s Office decided to ask Smart Communications for help in developing a mail system for legal correspondence as well.

    In Sept. 12, 2018, nine arrests were made after K2, a synthetic cannabinoid compound, was found to have been sprayed on paper and sold in transactions totaling $4,500.

    Sheriff Grady Judd had discussed the operation during a news conference. He said documents passed to inmates unknowingly by at least one attorney were reaching inmates, who were eating the paper or finding an electric spark to ignite it and then inhaling the smoke.

    In cross-examination, Tuomey asked Allen, “If the legal mail is scanned into Smart Communications' network and the inmate elects to place that legal mail, the original legal mail, in their personal property and it contains some type of contraband, are you saying that the Polk County Sheriff’s Office is now or could potentially be housing contraband at the jail?”

    Allen responded, “I don’t know what is on the paper, ma'am. That is their choice to shred it or place it in personal property. I just have the responsibility to make sure that while they are in the jail they don’t get their hands on any documents that could hurt them.”

    She asked how he knew whether a document was laced, and Allen said there was no way to tell. Tuomey then asked whether the Sheriff’s Office was familiar with a hand-held drug scanning system for detecting contraband within envelopes being used in facilities elsewhere.

    Allen said he had been approached by the company that developed such a system, but the agency opted for the Smart system.

    'Postings that were being done on Facebook'

    Tuomey also questioned Allen about a prohibition on smart phones and other electronic devices capable of taking photos being brought into client-attorney meetings at the jail.

    Allen said the Sheriff’s Office provides as many as 10 computers for attorneys to use during attorney booth visits with their clients. That policy was initiated after the Sheriff’s Office became aware that photos of inmates were posted to Facebook that had been uploaded by incarcerated inmates.

    “There were postings that were being done on Facebook at the time that people who were incarcerated were in the attorney booth, and these postings came out at the time they were in the attorney booth. He said the postings contained messages. He was not sure who posted them," he said.

    Tuomey also asked Allen about the potential for computer viruses being transmitted from Sheriff’s Office computers to attorneys' laptops through the thumb drives attorneys use to show their clients documents. Allen said the computers are sanitized after each use with a computer application.

    The October hearing also included testimony from the developer of the Smart Communications mail scanning system, who had traveled from Seattle to attend the hearing. Tuomey asked him how secure the data is that's scanned into the jail cart and stored on Smart servers. He said data was encrypted with software similar to financial transaction applications.

    The testimony from potentially seven witnesses took too long for them to finish, so Abdoney set another hearing for 9 a.m. on Jan. 9, when he could rule on the motions. More witnesses, including the deputy who oversees the mail scanning cart for the Sheriff’s Office, are expected to be called when the hearing continues.

    Similar policies elsewhere

    The Polk County lockup is not unlike Florida Department of Corrections prisons that have banned state prisoners from receiving any “tangible routine mail at all 128 of its facilities,” as reported by Prison Legal News in its September edition.

    The FDC policy began in January 2022 at several facilities, and now all prisons statewide deliver electronic copies of inmates’ mail on tablets they can checkout. A spokesman with the FDOC did not respond to further questions about the mail scanners in state prisons.

    In an email to a Ledger reporter, an FBI spokeswoman said she was prohibited by Department of Justice guidelines from denying nor confirming its agents had visited the Frostproof jail for an investigation involving the facility. The DOJ could not be reached for comment.

    In Pennsylvania, its state prisons had contracted with Smart Communications for $16 million for its mail scanners. The prison bureau was trying to eliminate drug exposure of its staff but changed its policy in April, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer report. In that case, an emergency injunction had been filed in federal court to stop what attorneys called a lack of access to the courts by inmates.

    The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections agreed to eventually "revert to some variation on the previous system, which did not involve photocopying and relied on individual attorney-identification numbers to track legal mail," the Inquirer report said.

    According to David C. Fathi, director of the ACLU National Prison Project, "There certainly are cases that hold that the confidentiality of attorney-client communications is sacrosanct. It is entitled to the highest level of confidentiality and protection and so any jail policies or practices that threaten that confidentiality are subject to very certain scrutiny."

    https://www.theledger.com/story/news...s/71933845007/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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