Apr 7, 2008 11:58 pm US/Eastern
State To Grocer's Family: "We're Sorry"
WEST PERRINE (CBS4) ―
Some mistakes are hard to take back, but Florida Governor Charlie Crist tried Monday afternoon, when his representative met with the West Perrine family of murdered neighborhood hero Lee Arthur Lawrence to issue an official state apology for the release of the man who ordered Lawrence's death.
The meeting came a year and a week after the family of Lawrence, a grocer and neighborhood activist in he 80's, came face-to-face with the drug dealer who had been convicted of ordering his death. The Lawrence family thought he was in prison, because the state never told them the man had been released.
Monday afternoon, William McNeil, head of the Florida Department of Corrections, met with the Lawrence family to personally deliver Crist's apology on behalf of the state for failing to tell the family the killer was free.
"I am here today to apologize because we didn't do that," McNeil said as he met the family at Lee's Grocery, the store where Lee Arthur Lawrence waged his battle, and where he lost his life.
"We failed the family, the community, and the citizens of Florida," McNeil said.
The release sparked outrage in the neighborhood and condemnation of the state bureaucracy, which shaved almost 20 years off a killer's sentence, and then released him without warning the victim's family.
Lawrence had become a hero in his West Perrine neighborhood, which at the end of the 80's had become over-run with drug dealers, robbers and killers. People who lived in the area of his store on SW 104th Avenue sometimes felt like hostages in their homes as criminals ran the streets.
"I don't profess to be important or anything like that," Lawrence told CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald in a 1987 interview. "I'm just concerned about my community. If everyone would stand up to dealers and thieves, we wouldn't have the problem."
Lawrence stood up, so the dealers mowed him down.
It was late in the evening of March 20, 1989. Lawrence was at his grocery when at least three men came in. They didn't really know Lawrence, but they were there on the orders of one of the neighborhood drug dealers, Bobby Lee Robinson, who was a target of Lawrence's efforts to clean up his neighborhood.
The thugs used an Uzi submachine gun and sprayed Lawrence with 30 bullets. His fight to battle the crack dealers reached a bloody end, but his death helped galvanize the neighborhood.
His fight gained national attention. President George HW Bush sent his son, Jeb, to speak at Lawrence's funeral. His story made the New York Times. He was profiled in Reader's Digest.
The store, which is still run by Lawrence's widow and son, became a rallying point for the neighborhood. Police stepped up patrols, people started informing on the drug dealers, and gradually the crime rate started to drop.
Changes in population brought by Hurricane Andrew helped accelerate the reduction in crime, so the streets became less like the wild west and more like a neighborhood.
And as that was happening, the men responsible for the massacre at Lee's Grocery were brought to justice.
Robinson was sentenced to death in the electric chair for ordering the killings. David Ingraham and Ronnie Johnson, who were convicted of the actual shooting, will die in prison. Johnson is on Death Row. Ingraham is serving life in prison.
But Robinson was set free by the State of Florida.
His 1991 conviction was overturned in 1997, and a new trial was ordered after the state Supreme Court ruled that his court appointed lawyer had mishandled Robinson's defense. The Judge in Robinson's case had also been imprisoned himself, charged with public corruption in Operation Court Broom.
Prosecutors had serious problems retrying the case, so they offered him a deal; 35 years in prison, credit for the 15 years served, if he pleaded guilty to lesser charges. Robinson accepted the deal in 2004.
While the Lawrence family knew of the deal, they had no idea that Florida's early-release law would shave 17 years off Robinson's sentence. With time off for good behavior, Robinson was released from prison almost 2 decades early.
He was released on the 69th birthday of Lee Arthur Lawrence. Through a bureaucratic bungle, the Lawrence family was never told.
They found out when they ran into Robinson, face to face, at a Wal-Mart store in Florida City.
"The should have notified us, and let us know that he was dismissed," said Lawrence's widow, Sarah."
However his widow is a determined woman who believes in forgiveness.
"I wanted to go over and shake his hand, and say, 'May God bless you," but my son would not let me. "But I meant it from my heart; I have forgiven him."
The man who had once been sentenced to die for ordering the death of Lee Arthur Lawrence is a free man, basically released for time served.
Other family members were outraged, telling The Herald they didn't understand the technicalities of the court hearing where Robinson was released.
"For one to go from Death Row to essentially time served is mind-boggling," widow Sarah Lawrence said. "This was a crime against a community, a community which today continues to fight the same battle my husband did…"
The state blamed the lack of notification on the lack of a good address for the Lawrence family, something family members reject, noting they get information from the state on a regular basis each time the others convicted of Lawrence's murder file legal motions.
The outrage at the release, and the way it was mishandled, brought the apology from Crist. Monday, Sarah Lawrence was thankful for the visit.
"They should have notified us. We wasn't, but I forgive them too."
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