Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 15

Thread: Willie Seth Crain, Jr. - Florida Death Row

  1. #1
    Guest
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    5,534

    Willie Seth Crain, Jr. - Florida Death Row




    Summary of Offense:

    Willie Crain was introduced to Kathryn Hartman by his daughter on September 9, 1998 while at a bar in Hillsborough County. Crain and Hartman danced and talked for four hours that night, until 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning. Crain dropped Hartman off at her trailer, and Hartman asked to see Crain again.

    On the afternoon of September 10, 1998, Crain returned to Hartman’s trailer, where he met her seven-year-old daughter, Amanda Brown. Crain and Brown sat at the kitchen table, playing games and doing her homework. Before leaving that afternoon, Crain accepted Hartman’s invitation to return for dinner that evening. After dinner that night, Crain and Brown played games with Brown and told her that he had a large collection of videotapes at his trailer. Brown pleaded with her mother to let her go to Crain’s trailer, and she agreed. Crain drove Hartman and Brown to his trailer in his white pickup truck.

    After beginning to watch the movie in Crain’s living room, Crain and Brown then went to his bedroom, where Hartman found the two sitting on Crain’s bed, watching the movie. Hartman noticed that Brown was sitting between Crain’s sprawled legs with her back to his front.

    At some point in the evening, Hartman asked Crain if he had any medication for pain. Crain offered her Valium, which she took, and marijuana, which she declined. Eventually, Hartman decided it was time to leave, and Crain drove Hartman and Brown to their trailer. Around 2:15 a.m., Brown went to sleep in Hartman’s bed. Crain appeared intoxicated, so Hartman advised him to lie down to sober up while she went to bed. Within five minutes of Hartman going to bed, Crain entered the bedroom and lay down on the bed with Hartman and Brown. Hartman awoke the next morning to find Crain gone and Brown missing.

    Hartman called Crain on his cell phone, and he told her that he did not know where Brown was and that he was loading his boat at a boat landing. Other people at the boat ramp testified at trial that Crain carried what appeared to be a rolled-up item of clothing with him when he was launching his boat. One of the men at the boat ramp that day testified that Crain had told him on two separate occasions that he had the ability to get rid of a body where no one could find it. Police later interviewed Crain, and he told police that he left Hartman’s house around 1:30 a.m. on September 11, 1998.

    He also told police that he accidentally spilled bleach in his bathroom and spent the early morning hours cleaning his bathroom. While searching Crain’s trailer, a detective applied Luminol, a chemical that reacts with blood, to Crain’s bathroom. The detective testified at trial that the floor, bathtub, and walls “lit up”. Detectives also found blood stains in the bathroom and on Crain’s boxer shorts, both of which contained DNA consistent with a mixture of the DNA profiles of Crain and Brown. Despite an extensive, two-week search of Upper Tampa Bay, Brown’s body was never found.

    Crain was sentenced to death in Hillsborough County on November 19, 1999.

  2. #2
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Case Information:

    Crain filed a Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on 03/27/00, citing the following errors: failing to establish sufficient evidence of premeditation and kidnapping with intent to commit homicide, giving different jury instructions on the elements of kidnapping, relying on an aggravating circumstance not proven by the evidence, and unconstitutionality of Florida’s death penalty scheme. On 10/28/04, the FSC affirmed the convictions and sentences.

    Crain filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on 03/25/05 that was denied on 10/03/05.

    Crain filed a 3.851 Motion with the Circuit Court on 09/08/06 that was denied on 09/11/09.

    On 12/15/06, Crain filed a post conviction motion for DNA testing, which was granted in part on 08/28/07.

    Crain filed an appeal of his 3.850 Motion in the Florida Supreme Court on 10/16/09 that is pending.

    Oral arguments for the 3.850 motion are set for 5/4/11 before the FSC

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    WILLIE SETH CRAIN, JR. v THE STATE OF FLORIDA

    In today's opinions, the Florida Supreme Court AFFIRMED the district court's DENIAL of Crain's petition for postconviction relief.

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Appeal denied, father of murdered girl ready to see man executed

    A convicted child killer won't get his death sentence overturned.

    The man who killed Amanda Brown lost his appeal before the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday. Willie Crain was convicted of taking the 7-year-old girl from her bed and killing her in 1998.

    Now, Roy Brown is anxious to see his daughter's killer put to death.

    Crain was eventually sentenced to death, but tried to appeal the conviction.

    In his latest appeal, Cain argued his attorneys failed to challenge a state witness and DNA samples.

    Brown's father said it's been 14 long years and he just wants to live to see Crain put to death.

    "I've got to see him die," Roy Brown said. "The day we left the courtroom, he looked at me and told me, 'I wont die for this,' and just smiled. I told him, 'You see this, old man? This will be the last thing you see when they turn the lights off'."

    Roy Brown is now an advocate for finding missing children.

    His daughter's body is believed to have been dumped in Tampa Bay and never found.

    Brown said he speaks about missing children and asks people to call their legislators in hopes they'll speed up the death penalty process for child killers -- like Willie Crain.

    (Source: BayNews9)

  5. #5
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    On February 15, 2012, Crain filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/flo...v00322/268087/

  6. #6
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    On September 29, 2015, Crain filed an appeal before the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit over the apparent denial of his habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    https://dockets.justia.com/docket/ci.../ca11/15-14347

  7. #7
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Families relive grief as death row inmates may get reduction in sentence

    Florida Supreme Court Justice James E.C. Perry retired last Friday. He joins a growing number of former justices who no longer believe the death penalty remains viable.

    In his final opinion, Perry blasted the court’s majority for setting the stage for new sentencing hearings for at least 173 death row inmates, which will have a lasting impact on many of the victims' families.

    When Florida switched from the electric chair to lethal injections, lawmakers rewrote the law to say that if the death penalty is ever declared unconstitutional, everyone on death row would automatically get life. But the majority of the Florida Supreme Court split hairs, ignoring the statute, reasoning that only the way in which the state sentenced people to death, and not the ultimate penalty itself, had been declared unconstitutional by the nation’s highest court.

    Nearly every September, Roy Brown and his family attend the Missing Children’s Day Ceremony at the state Capitol. His daughter, Amanda, was 7 years old in 1998 when she was kidnapped, killed and likely dumped in Tampa Bay. Her body has never been recovered.

    “People say, 'Does it get any better?' No sir, it don’t,” Brown said.

    Wilie Crain is on death row for a crime -- at least for now. He is one of more than 170 inmates who will get the chance to have their sentences reduced.

    Brown said every time Crain’s case comes up for an appeal, he’s forced to relive his anguish.

    “If they’d given him a life sentence, we’d be living our life, you know?" Brown said. "With this death sentence, we have to be there, hear stuff we don’t like hearing. You know, we have to deal with him. His name is still in my house, and I don’t like it.”

    Perry blasted the court's majority when it ruled that killers such as Crain, whose case was final in 2004, should be re-sentenced, calling the ruling arbitrary. He thinks justices ignored a state law that requires every death row inmate to get life instead.

    “If you’re not going to kill them, you've got to lock them up like Crain. The one who killed my daughter is locked up and he may never die, but he’s locked up and he ain’t hurting no more kids,” Brown said.”

    Brown suffered a heart attack in 2014. He said the stress of Crain's case played a factor.

    Unless a federal court overrules Florida's highest court, Brown will relive the tragedy in minute detail.

    http://www.news4jax.com/news/familie...on-in-sentence
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  8. #8
    pro pro
    Guest
    Wasn't Willie Crains jury unamious? If so the Ring vs Azronia doesn't apply to him.
    Last edited by pro pro; 01-05-2017 at 06:31 PM.

  9. #9
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    He's 12-0 and sentenced before Ring. He won't have his sentence overturned.
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  10. #10
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    Today the Florida Supreme Court denied his Hurst appeal.

    http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/d.../sc17-1475.pdf

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •