[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA

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6oJCLQPAJiJUG&b=6645049&aid=517172

UA: 36/12
Issue Date: 3 February 2012.
Country: USA

THREE DECADES ON DEATH ROW, EXECUTION SET
A 65-year-old man is scheduled to be executed in the US state of Florida on 15 
February for a murder
committed in January 1980. He has been on death row for half of his life.

In September 1980, 33-year-old Robert Waterhouse was sentenced to death for the 
first-degree murder
of Deborah Kammerer. Her nude body had been found eight months earlier in mud 
flats at Tampa Bay,
Florida. Robert Waterhouse, who at the time of the crime was on parole in 
relation to a
second-degree murder conviction in 1966 in New York, was arrested and charged 
with the Kammerer
murder. In 1988, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a new sentencing hearing 
(see overleaf). He was
re-sentenced to death in 1990.

In 2003, Robert Waterhouse's lawyers filed a motion in state court for DNA 
testing of evidence from
the crime. At a hearing in 2005, it was established that the evidence had been 
destroyed and that
there was nothing left that could be subjected to DNA analysis. The judge 
concluded that the
destruction had been inadvertent. A new defense motion argues that it would be 
unconstitutional to
execute a prisoner who has "consistently and continuously maintained his 
innocence", who in support
of this claim has sought DNA testing unavailable at the time of his trial, and 
where all relevant
evidence has been destroyed as a result of official recklessness or negligence. 
The Florida Supreme
Court is due to hear oral arguments on the motion on 7 February.

The motion also provides new evidence from a man who says that on the night of 
the murder he was in
the bar from which, according to the trial testimony of a bartender who was a 
key witness for the
prosecution, Robert Waterhouse had left with Deborah Kammerer. In a sworn 
statement signed on 9
January 2012, the new witness (who also worked at the bar) claimed that it 
would have been
impossible for the bartender to have seen the exit from where she said she was 
at the time. The new
witness said that on the night in question he had seen Robert Waterhouse leave 
the bar with two
white males, not with the victim. He further alleges that he was interviewed by 
police at the time,
and that he had told them this, but that the detective had seemed 
"disinterested" and subsequently
"accused [me] of trying to protect a murderer." The new witness says that he 
has come forward now
because he read a newspaper article on 5 January 2012 which stated that Robert 
Waterhouse had been
seen leaving the bar with Deborah Kammerer, which the witness states was "not 
true."

Robert Waterhouse's lawyers have pointed to the commutation in 2005, by the 
Governor of Virginia, of
the death sentence of Robin Lovitt. The governor pointed to the destruction by 
officials of
biological and other evidence from the crime. Noting that the death penalty was 
the state's "most
severe and final sanction," he said the system "must operate with complete 
integrity" and that the
evidence destruction had "breached the public trust in the system."

Please write immediately in your own language:
- Explaining that you are not seeking to downplay the seriousness of the crime, 
or the suffering
caused;
- Expressing concern that evidence from the crime has been destroyed, making 
DNA testing impossible;
- Noting the new witness evidence calling into question the trial testimony of 
a key prosecution
witness;
- Urging the Governor to commute Robert Waterhouse's death sentence.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, AND BEFORE 15 FEBRUARY 2012:
Governor Rick Scott
Office of the Governor,
The Capitol,
400 S. Monroe St
Tallahassee, FL
32399-0001
USA
Email: Rick.scott at eog.myflorida.com
Salutation: Dear Governor

Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if sending appeals after the 
above date.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
In 1988, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a new sentencing for Robert 
Waterhouse consistent with a
1987 US Supreme Court decision relating to mitigation evidence in capital 
cases. At the
re-sentencing hearing in 1990, Robert Waterhouse refused to allow the 
presentation of any mitigation
evidence on his behalf. He said that his lawyer could have presented "at least 
half a dozen factors
in mitigation" but that he would not allow him to do so because "I shouldn't be 
up here begging for
my life," and not presenting such evidence "spares my family the embarrassment, 
the trauma". He had
wanted his lawyer to make a "lingering doubt" argument, but as this was not 
considered a mitigating
factor under Florida law, the lawyer considered that he could not ethically do 
so.

The two lawyers who represented Robert Waterhouse at his original 1980 trial 
have seen the statement
signed in January 2012 by the man who has come forward to question the trial 
evidence. These lawyers
have themselves now signed statements asserting that he would have been in 
important witness for
them to present at the trial in order to undermine the prosecution's key 
witness, the bartender who
had said Robert Waterhouse had left the bar with Deborah Kammerer. They state 
that although there is
a "brief mention" of this witness in the police report which they had seen 
prior to the trial, the
report indicated that he had "had no information about the evening in 
question." The lawyers assert
that they did not contact this witness because they had "relied on this police 
report as being an
accurate and truthful statement of what [the witness] told the police."

The death penalty in the USA is marked by arbitrariness, discrimination and 
error. One of the
starkest statistics about the death penalty is that since the US Supreme Court 
ruled in 1976 that
executions could resume under new capital statutes, more than 130 people have 
been released from
death rows on the grounds of innocence. In more than 10 per cent of these 
innocence cases, DNA
evidence played a substantial role in the exoneration.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, regardless of 
questions of guilt or
innocence, the facts of the crime, or the method of execution. Today, some 140 
countries are
abolitionist in law or practice. The USA appears to be turning against the 
death penalty. There were
43 executions in the USA in 2011, compared to 46 in 2010 and 52 in 2009. A more 
marked decline can
be seen in the annual death sentencing total which has fallen by about 
two-thirds since the
mid-1990s. In 2011, the number of death sentences passed during the year fell 
below 100 for the
first time since executions resumed in 1977.

There have been 1279 executions in the USA since judicial killing resumed there 
in 1977, including
71 in Florida. There have been two executions in the USA so far in 2012, 
carried out in Oklahoma and
Texas.

Name(s): Robert Waterhouse (m)
Issue(s): Death penalty
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This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact 
information and stop action
date (if applicable). Thank you for your help with this appeal.

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Email: uan at aiusa.org
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Phone: 202.509.8193
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END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL
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