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Man on death row gets new trial
By DAVID KARP © St. Petersburg Times, TAMPA -- A drug-addicted drifter sent to death row 15 years ago won a new trial Friday in a murder case that attracted hardly any attention at the time. The extraordinary turn of events in the case against Rudolph Holton happened in a courtroom Friday in near silence. Circuit Judge Daniel Perry handed out his opinion overturning Holton's murder conviction without comment. In a busy courtroom, no one except the lawyers and a few relatives knew what had just happened. As the judge moved to the next case, one of Holton's attorneys scanned the ruling, then gave a thumbs up. Outside, Holton's daughter cried and said, "Bless God. Bless God." With tears running down her cheeks, she hugged Linda McDermott, a 31-year-old lawyer who had made Holton's case her cause. McDermott worked on the case for free at one point and searched the state for funding. When she couldn't raise money for a defense, McDermott abandoned plans to enter private practice and returned to work at the state agency that represents death row inmates so she could finish Holton's case. "There was something about Rudolph and his case that was compelling," McDermott said. "Someone had to step up and say, "This is going to be the case I go the extra mile on.' " McDermott brought in a capital appeals specialist from New York and recruited investigators who tracked down homeless men who were witnesses. "It was one of my first cases," McDermott said. "It had never been looked at closely." When the murder happened in 1986, it was the sort of case lawyers refer to as a "misdemeanor murder" because the victim is little-known and unsympathetic. In this case, the deceased was a 17-year-old crack addict and prostitute named Katrina Graddy who was raped and set on fire in an abandoned drug house near College Hill. Holton, then 33, had been convicted of more than a dozen crimes, mostly nonviolent burglaries, to feed a drug habit. Six months after his arrest, Holton was convicted and sentenced to die. His court-appointed lawyer, Mina Morgan, had four months to prepare a defense while juggling five other trials. She begged then-Circuit Judge Harry Lee Coe to grant her more time, but Coe refused. Coe wouldn't give her a five-minute break between Holton's trial and his death penalty hearing. The evidence against Holton was circumstantial. The prosecutor on the case, Joe Episcopo, told jurors that a hair found in the victim's mouth came from an African-American. Holton is black. A witness testified that she saw Holton enter the drug house the night Graddy was killed. A jail informant said Holton confessed. Fifteen years later, even Episcopo said he doesn't find the case convincing. DNA tests show that the hair did not come from Holton. The jail informant admitted he lied, and other witnesses changed their stories too. Most important, police never turned over a crucial crime report to Holton's attorney. Although police unintentionally withheld the report, Judge Perry cited it Friday as a main reason for a new trial. Shortly before Graddy's murder, she reported that a man named David Pearson, now 43, raped her. When she was found dead, she had been raped in a similar way. This summer, Pearson gave detectives samples of his DNA. In a sworn statement, he denied raping the woman but acknowledged having sex with her in exchange for drugs, then fighting about it 10 days before her murder. Pearson, a convicted criminal who is currently in jail on unrelated charges, denied any role in the woman's death. State Attorney Mark Ober has 30 days to decide if he will appeal Perry's decision. Prosecutors may have a difficult time retrying Holton, now 48. All of the state's witnesses have either died, recanted their testimony or been discredited by new witnesses. No physical evidence links Holton to the murder, although prosecutors now want to test hair fibers that were never tested 15 years ago. "If you look at the evidence," defense attorney Martin McClain said, "it's basically all gone." - David Karp can be reached at (813) 226-3376 or karp@sptimes.com.
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