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Thread: Albert Richard Holland, Jr. - Florida Death Row

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    Albert Richard Holland, Jr. - Florida Death Row


    Officer Scott Winters




    Summary of Offense:

    On July 29, 1990, Thelma Johnson reported that Albert Holland approached her and asked her if she had a hitter (a device used to smoke cocaine). Johnson stated that she did not, but proceeded to lead Holland to a wooded area with the intention of smoking cocaine together. Holland then smoked the first half of his cocaine rock off of a beer can, but Johnson refrained because she did not like that method of smoking. After smoking the second half of the rock, Holland became violent. Holland shoved Johnson to the ground, held her down, and hit her on the side of the head with a bottle while she begged him not to kill her. As Holland beat her, he repeatedly threatened to kill her. Holland ripped Johnson’s shirt and unzipped his pants. Holland forced Johnson to give him oral sex. When Johnson protested and stopped, Holland beat her until she was unconscious. Holland stopped beating Johnson and left the scene when a witness yelled for Holland to stop before he killed her. Johnson had a severed ear, a fractured skull, and multiple cuts on her face, which required extensive plastic surgery. Police officers responded to a call regarding the attack and began the search for the perpetrator.

    Officer Scott Winters was in his patrol car when he asked Holland to approach the vehicle. Officer Winters exited the patrol car and instructed Holland to put his hands on the car. Holland complied with the request. As Winters reached down to use the radio on his belt, Holland turned and took a swing aimed at Winters’ head. A struggle ensued and Winters got Holland in a headlock. Winters repeatedly tried to put Holland on the ground by using his nightstick, but Holland rose and turned, causing the combatants to face each other. Holland managed to take Winters’ gun and shot the officer twice before he fled the scene. Police officers stated that Winters requested backup at 7:25 p.m. and reported being shot at 7:26 p.m. When officers arrived at the scene, Winters’ gun was missing. Winters died at 8:30 p.m. as a result of gunshot wounds to the lower stomach and groin area.

    Holland was first sentenced to death in 1991 in Broward County and eventually resentenced on February 7, 1997.

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    March 2, 2010

    The Supreme Court reviewed on Monday whether a death-row inmate can still challenge his detention in federal court after his state-appointed lawyer missed the deadline for such a challenge, despite the convict's anxious badgering. Florida, where the man was sentenced, argued that allowing leniency for such "garden variety" attorney negligence cases would allow for a wave of new death-penalty challenges. Justice Stephen Breyer looked appalled and said, "We have a problem with the bar, don't we?"

    Death-row inmate Albert Holland's initial lawyer, Bradley Collins, missed the deadline to file a habeas corpus petition despite having almost a year to prepare and despite persistent requests from Holland, who was convicted in Florida of murdering a police officer, armed robbery, sexual battery and attempted murder. He was sentenced to death in 1991.

    Holland's ex-lawyer stopped replying to Holland's letters, and neglected to keep him informed of the progress of his case.

    Florida lawyer Todd Scher, with his own office, was appointed by the Supreme Court to represent Holland. He argued that Holland was stuck with his attorney which kept him from filing motions on his own behalf even after "complete abandonment" by his lawyer. Scher said the lawyer's conduct constitutes gross negligence, as opposed to mere negligence, and therefore merits equitable tolling -- or acceptance of a late habeas petition.

    The Supreme Court has never held whether equitable tolling is available under the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which sets the deadline.

    Justice Samuel Alito criticized Scher's arguments as impractical. "The difference between mere negligence and gross negligence, that's an ephemeral distinction," he said. "But that's the one you one you think we should draw."

    Justice Anthony Kennedy said he didn't know if it would be fair to distinguish between negligence and gross negligence if they lead to the same result.

    Chief Justice John Roberts voiced the same concern. "If the lawyer just miscalculated and was off by one day, this case comes out the other way in your view, right?" he asked of Holland's lawyer.

    The lawyer replied that if such were the case, the court would be correct in rejecting the plea. "That's an unfortunate mere mistake," Scher said, and contrasted it with the "complete abandonment" of his client.

    Roberts acknowledged the persistence that Holland showed in petitioning the federal court, but seemed to remain unswayed. "I have trouble understanding why that should make a difference," he said. "Why should he be in better shape than somebody who says, 'I don't know anything about this, I need a good lawyer, I'm trusting you?'"

    "It's very hard to argue against equitable tolling," Roberts said. "But at the same time, I think you do need a constraining principle that it doesn't do away with the statute of limitations."

    Florida Solicitor General Scott Makar argued that the deadlines should not be manipulated, saying that if it were, many other "garden variety" attorney negligence cases like it could follow.

    Breyer criticized the broad sweep of Makar's argument. "You mean to imply that earthquake, fire, flood, mad postman burns mail truck, et cetera?" he asked.

    Makar ultimately said that natural disasters could merit equitable tolling.

    Breyer pounced. "If you are going to read it `in some cases you can do it,' then I guess we are at a discussion of, is this one of those cases," he said.

    Alito offered another scenario. "What if the lawyer lies to the client and the client says 'my time is running out, have you filed federal habeas petition?'" he asked, "And the lawyer says, 'yes, I filed it and here it is.' And it has a forged date stamp on it?"

    Makar replied that the court would still not be able to grant leniency.

    But Breyer expressed sympathy for such cases.

    "It's a little hard to see why you couldn't have a narrow standard but just not rule out the possibility," he said. "There are odd thing that happen in life. And just say. `go look for this, see if it's truly extraordinary, if it's fair, if he was diligent,' what about that?"

    Roberts followed up. "Why isn't it extreme attorney incompetence to miss a deadline?" he asked.

    Makar replied that such incompetence is "run of the mill."

    After filing the appeal to the Florida Supreme Court in 2003, Holland's lawyer did not reply to Holland's requests for information on the appeal, and in 2004, Holland tried to get rid of his lawyer, but his motion was denied.

    In 2005, Holland wrote to his lawyer from prison, asking, "If the Florida Supreme Court denies my [appeals], please file my writ of habeas corpus petition, before my deadline to file it runs out." The lawyer did not respond to that letter or a second letter asking if he had begun the habeas corpus petition.

    The Florida Supreme Court denied Holland's appeals at the end of 2005, leaving him with two weeks to file a petition with the federal court. But his lawyer did not notify him of the decision, and did not file a petition.

    On January of 2006, Holland wrote to his lawyer asking if there was any news on the appeal, and mentioned that he was concerned about the deadline to file with the federal court. Holland then did his own research and discovered the ruling after he was allowed access to the prison's documents. He immediately wrote a late habeas petition and mailed it the next day.

    Holland was eventually able to get a new lawyer. The attorney tried to get the federal court to accept Holland's habeas petition in light of the "extraordinary circumstances that were [both] beyond his control and unavoidable even with diligence." But the district court refused the plea for equitable tolling.

    The 11th Circuit then denied Holland's appeal, saying it even a case of attorney "gross negligence" would not be a sufficient reason.

    http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/03/01/25149.htm

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    March 15, 2010

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sympathized with a Florida death row inmate whose lawyer missed a deadline for his habeas appeal and failed to communicate with him for years despite numerous written pleas for help.

    By a 7-2 vote in Holland v. Florida, the Court said that the lawyer's misconduct may entitle convicted murderer Albert Holland to "equitable tolling," or a delay in what otherwise would have been a one-year statute of limitation for filing the appeal under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

    The lawyer's failures, wrote Justice Stephen Breyer for the majority, "seriously prejudiced a client who thereby lost what was likely his single opportunity for habeas review."

    The Court sent the case back to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to determine if in fact the conduct of the lawyer, Bradley Collins of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was egregious enough to pause the deadline for Holland's appeal. Collins did not return phone calls for comment.

    The decision represented a rare procedural victory for defendants under the AEDPA that won applause from those concerned about inadequate legal representation for death row inmates on appeal.

    "The Court is starting to understand there are some very bad lawyers out there that the client should not pay the penalty for," said Virginia Sloan, president of the nonpartisan Constitution Project. "The fact that they have found an exception to AEDPA is a great thing." Miami Beach lawyer Todd Scher of the Law Office of Todd G. Scher, who argued Holland's case before the high court, said Monday he was "very pleased the Court recognized that equitable tolling is available." Scher said the case is not over, and "there is still a high burden" for showing that tolling is warranted. And only then can he present his habeas argument. Scher said he was unable to reach his client in prison on Monday, but "I am quite sure he'll be very happy."

    Holland, accused of killing a Pompano Beach police officer, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997.

    After the U.S. Supreme Court first denied review in October 2001, the one-year clock began to run. In November of that year, Florida appointed Collins to represent Holland for his appeals. The following September, Collins filed for state post-conviction relief, which stopped the clock with only 12 days left. After that, Breyer said, relations between lawyer and client "began to break down." Without Holland even being aware it was happening, the Florida Supreme Court considered his case in February 2005 and in November denied relief. Collins did not reply to numerous letters from Holland. The federal clock resumed, and soon Holland was out of time for the federal habeas review. Collins never filed an appeal.

    Holland filed on his own, blaming the missed deadline on his lawyer, but both the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and the 11th Circuit ruled that the lawyer's behavior did not amount to a circumstance warranting tolling of the statute of limitations.

    Breyer said that was too narrow a view of the AEDPA, which he said, "did not seek to end every possible delay at all costs." Breyer said the Court should be cautious before interpreting the AEDPA's silence on an issue as "indicating a strong congressional intent to close courthouse doors that a strong equitable claim would ordinarily keep open."

    In dissent, however, Justice Antonin Scalia said the law "leaves no room for equitable exceptions" to the one-year deadline. Scalia also said that, because a defendant has no right to counsel on appeal, "the rule holding him responsible for his attorney's acts applies with full force." Thus, even when the missed deadline was caused by a lawyer's error, "the petitioner is out of luck," Scalia said. Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia's dissent.

    John Holdridge, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project, said the decision is "a victory for basic fairness." For the first time, Holdridge said, death row inmates "will now have an opportunity to show that they should be allowed to file a petition if the deadline has passed because of attorney misconduct or gross negligence."

    A death-row inmate in Florida was given a second chance to argue that an otherwise strict one-year filing deadline should not apply to him, in light of his lawyer’s inaccessibility and incompetence. The vote was 7 to 2.

    The case concerned an unusually diligent and savvy inmate, Albert Holland, and an uncommunicative lawyer, Bradley Collins, who was appointed to handle Mr. Holland’s habeas corpus challenges to his murder conviction and death sentence.

    Mr. Holland complained to the Florida Supreme Court in June 2004 of “a complete breakdown in communications,” saying he had not seen or spoken to his lawyer in 14 months and felt abandoned. He asked for a new lawyer.

    Florida prosecutors responded that Mr. Holland was not allowed to communicate with the court directly because he was represented by counsel, an argument accepted by the court. In a concurrence on June 14, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. called that ruling perverse.

    The question in the case was whether Mr. Collins’s conduct was sufficient to suspend a deadline in a 1996 law limiting death penalty litigation. The court did not decide that question, but it said the appeals court had used too narrow a standard in saying that a lawyer’s negligence was never enough.

    Justice Breyer’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Stevens, Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

    Justice Alito largely agreed but said the majority had not laid down a clear standard of its own.

    Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented. He said the court was powerless under the Constitution to rewrite the law

    http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?i...4&rss=newswire

    Supreme Court opinion is here:

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/09-5327.pdf

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    The Eleventh Circuit remanded Holland's case to District Court on August 5, 2010.

    Order is here:

    http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinion...3366RemOrd.pdf

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    In Monday's (October 3, 2011) United States Supreme Court orders, Holland's petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis was DENIED.

  6. #6
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    Death Row Inmate’s Best Lawyer Was Himself

    By ADAM LIPTAK
    The New York Times

    WASHINGTON — Albert Holland Jr., a death row inmate in Florida, has no legal training and seems to be suffering from a mental illness — “perhaps a disorder involving paranoia or delusional thoughts,” a federal judge wrote recently.

    But he turns out to be a pretty good lawyer. Two years ago, in allowing Mr. Holland a fresh chance to make his case after his court-appointed lawyer blew a crucial deadline, the Supreme Court praised Mr. Holland’s legal acumen. Indeed, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote, Mr. Holland had had a better understanding of the complicated time limits for challenging death sentences in federal court than his lawyer had.

    Mr. Holland made good use of the opportunity the Supreme Court gave him. A couple of weeks ago, he won a decision granting him a new trial. In the process, he opened a window on the astoundingly spotty quality of court-appointed counsel in capital cases.

    The lawyer whose work the justices had considered was the least of it; he had merely been unresponsive and incompetent. Mr. Holland’s earlier lawyers had failed him in much more colorful ways.

    Consider Kenneth Delegal, who was assigned to defend Mr. Holland at a 1996 retrial on charges that he had killed a Pompano Beach, Fla., police officer in 1990. Mr. Delegal was removed from the case after being sent to a mental health facility. Later, the two men would see each other at the Broward County jail, where Mr. Delegal was held on drug and domestic violence charges.

    The next lawyer, James Lewis, was a friend of Mr. Delegal’s and had shared office space with him. When Mr. Delegal went to court after his removal from Mr. Holland’s case, seeking to be paid about $40,000 for his work on it, the new lawyer testified on behalf of the old one, saying the fees had been “reasonable and necessary.”

    Mr. Delegal died of a drug overdose about a month after the fee hearing, and a local paper asked his former colleague Mr. Lewis about his troubles. “I heard some rumors,” Mr. Lewis said, “but I chose not to know.”

    This series of lawyers, Judge Patricia A. Seitz of the Federal District Court in Miami wrote this month, “does assist in understanding why someone, perhaps predisposed to paranoia due to a mental disturbance, may have wanted self-representation over court-appointed counsel.”

    In granting Mr. Holland a new trial, Judge Seitz ruled that a state judge had violated Mr. Holland’s rights under the Sixth Amendment by refusing to let him represent himself.

    At the 1996 retrial, which, like the first, ended in a murder conviction and a death sentence, Mr. Holland asked to represent himself at least 10 times, saying he did not trust Mr. Lewis and could in any event do a better job himself.

    Judge Charles M. Greene of the state circuit court in Fort Lauderdale denied the requests, saying Mr. Holland did not have “any specific legal training.” That is not the constitutional standard; indeed, the Supreme Court has said that “technical legal knowledge” is not required.

    The relevant questions, Judge Seitz wrote, were whether Mr. Holland understood that he had a right to a court-appointed lawyer and whether he was mentally competent to decide to waive that right.

    When Mr. Holland was allowed to address the court, he seemed to make sense. He said, for instance, that Mr. Lewis “denied me effective assistance of counsel because his loyalty was impaired.”

    Mr. Holland also told the court that his legal research indicated that his indictment on a charge of attempted felony murder was flawed because there was no such crime in Florida. (“It is noteworthy,” Judge Seitz wrote, that “this statement had a factual basis.” Indeed, the Florida Supreme Court had said as much in 1995 in an unrelated case.)

    At other times, Mr. Holland exhibited a certain flair, though it was perhaps not to everyone’s taste.

    “From what I have seen in the evidence,” he told Judge Greene, “Ray Charles could come in here and represent himself, and Stevie Wonder, so I don’t need much legal training to do all that.”

    Judge Greene acknowledged that Mr. Holland had “voiced concerns and issues in a most eloquent manner” and had expressed himself in a “very coherent and organized manner.”

    When it came time to sentence Mr. Holland to death, Judge Greene said he gave little weight to Mr. Holland’s history of mental illness, though he had twice been found not guilty by reason of insanity for robberies in Washington and had been involuntarily hospitalized in the 1980s for four years.

    As proof that Mr. Holland was no longer mentally ill, Judge Greene praised him as an able advocate who had “correctly argued case law and factual issues to the court.” His legal skills, then, were proof that he was fit to be executed — but not good enough that he be allowed to defend himself.

    These days, Mr. Holland is represented by Todd G. Scher, a Miami Beach lawyer who won in the Supreme Court and persuaded Judge Seitz to order a new trial. A spokesman for the Florida attorney general’s office said prosecutors would ask Judge Seitz to reconsider her ruling.

    Mr. Scher said he did not know who would represent Mr. Holland at a retrial. For now, he said, what was clear was that a federal judge had found “a blatant Sixth Amendment violation.”

    “It shows that he was right,” Mr. Scher said of his client. “He had concerns about his prior series of lawyer, and his concerns turned out to be valid.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/us...tal-cases.html

  7. #7
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    The 11th Circuit reversed the district court's grant of habeas relief regarding this guy, finally.

    "Therefore, we reverse the grant of the writ of habeas corpus and remand with instructions for the district court to reinstate Holland’s conviction and sentence. However, we affirm the district court’s denial of a habeas writ on Holland’s three other appellate claims."

    http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opini.../201212404.pdf

  8. #8
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    Broward cop killer again facing death penalty for 1990 murder

    By Paula McMahon
    The Sun Sentinel

    Albert Holland, who was tried, convicted and sentenced to death — twice — for the 1990 murder of a Broward County police officer, is once again facing the ultimate punishment.

    Holland, 56, was gearing up for a third trial for the fatal shooting of Pompano Beach Police Officer Scott Winters after a federal judge ruled two years ago that a Broward judge violated Holland's right to act as his own lawyer during his second trial.

    On Monday, a federal appeals court rejected the lower court's decision and reinstated Holland's conviction and death sentence. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Holland's long history of mental illness meant that the trial judge was correct in turning down Holland's request to represent himself in court.

    "We have little doubt that if the trial court had allowed Holland to represent himself, and the jury had convicted him, the claim today would be that he was in no condition to waive his right to counsel in a capital case," the three-judge panel wrote.

    The judges ruled that lower courts, including the Florida Supreme Court, "reasonably concluded that his mental condition kept him from making a knowing and voluntary waiver of the right to counsel."

    Officer Winters was 28 and working an off-duty detail on July 29, 1990, when he tried to question Holland about a brutal sexual assault on a woman in a field near Hammondville Road in Pompano Beach. The men got into a struggle that ended when Holland grabbed Winters' gun and shot the officer twice in the groin and lower stomach, according to trial testimony.

    Broward Sheriff's Deputy George Wesolowski, a former Pompano Beach police officer who has been the main contact with Winters' family since the murder, said Tuesday he was relieved to hear Holland is again facing the death penalty.

    "We are very happy to hear that. It's a relief to me and everyone who knew Officer Winters," Wesolowski said.

    Winters' mother, June, died recently and efforts to contact other family members were unsuccessful.

    Holland's lawyers did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.

    Broward Assistant State Attorney Carolyn McCann also welcomed the ruling.

    "We're very pleased, to say the least," McCann said.

    Holland could ask the federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling and then ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider his case, she said.

    After that, Holland is pretty much out of appeals and, 24 years after his crime, McCann said: "He is ripe for a death warrant."

    Holland was first convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 after a trial where his disruptive behavior led to him being removed from the courtroom. He watched much of his trial on a closed-circuit TV in a separate room.

    The Florida Supreme Court reversed that conviction, saying trial testimony about a psychiatric examination of Holland violated his rights.

    He was convicted and sentenced to death again in 1997 after a second trial.

    Court records show Holland, who got his GED in jail, suffered a severe brain injury while incarcerated in federal prison in 1979. He was treated for schizophrenia for years in the decade before Winters' murder and was hospitalized and found not guilty of robbery charges twice by reason of insanity in other states.

    He escaped from the psychiatric hospital twice, moved to Florida and murdered Winters, the appeals court said.

    He and his lawyers at times tried to mount an insanity defense in the murder case and he showed clear signs of paranoia in court, the appeals court ruled. Though he was found mentally competent to stand trial, that did not mean he could represent himself, the appeals court ruled.

    During one of the many times Holland asked to represent himself in his second trial, he told Broward Circuit Judge Charles Greene he could use some legal knowledge he picked up watching the old TV drama "Matlock."

    "From what I've seen in the evidence," he said, "Ray Charles could come in here and represent himself and Stevie Wonder, so I don't need too much legal training to do all that."

    http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/br...230-story.html
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    - Rev. Richard Hawke

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  9. #9
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On April 7, 2015, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit DENIED Holland's petition for en banc rehearing.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es\15-5628.htm

  10. #10
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Holland's petition for certiorari.

    Appeals exhausted decision could result in an execution date.

    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
    Case Nos.: (12-12404)
    Decision Date: December 29, 2014
    Rehearing Denied: April 7, 2015
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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