The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 629

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 14 1993 lift THE MIAMI HERALD INTERNATIONAL EDITION ANATOMY OF AN INJUSTICE murder Innocent man free but questions remain from ft his ex-wife was dead and that the baby was alone in the house Hamwi did nothing to save her One other thing Beckett said To disguise the motive for the murder he and Serio tried to fake a sex crime by removing clothing But they did not rape her: John Purvis was convicted of a sexual battery that in reality never occurred FAR FROM SETTLED Former husband maintains innocence Although thorough account cracked the case and remains to date the strongest evidence against Paul Hamwi not everyone is buying it Said former Fort Lauderdale detective Gary Ciam now a private investigator gave somebody a pretty sweet deal to confess not willing to mark Purvis off the suspect list normal I still see how you eliminate him today But one of old colleagues the very detective who helped obtain a confession from Purvis now wonders if they had the right man after all they feel confident enough to let him out confident thev have information that would exonerate him" said Rick Rice now tending goats in Ocala not guilty thankful he was Even Carney who worked so diligently to win a jury conviction disagree with release Even back then the prosecutor-turned-judge said last week were people that pointed to Carney said he checked out Hamwi personally taking notes on his alibi and telephoning witnesses to check on it His Robert Williams reviewed the files and found the 1985 memos pointing to Paul Hamwi That got their attention In November police contacted Beckett Sr the suspected hit man in Las Vegas An intimidating 300-pounder who once collected debts for a living and insisted on wearing white corduroy shorts in the middle of frigid winter Beckett Sr professed to have softened over the years He said he was a born-again Christian He mentioned his recent heart attack He asked for a deal were concerned that we may be granting immunity to a cold-blooded detective Bronson said recently were On Dec 14 Beckett Sr told police his story on video Three weeks later he told it to a Broward grand jury which issued indictments for Hamwi and Paul Scrio hit man No 2 Beckett account rich detail included an accurate description of the murder scene and events that led up to the 1983 crime He said Paul Hamwi whom he had met years earlier an Aspen karate class paid him $14000 to do the deed A shrewd businessman party to several dozen unpleasant lawsuits Hamwi did not relish the prospect of paying his ex-wife thousands of dollars in the divorce Beckett said the settlement go well for him It was going to cost him a lot of money He just like that part of The death of baby Shane Beckett testified was a mistake Hamwi had told him he would his daughter live And yet Beckett added when he called Hamwi to tell him that the plan had been carried out that was no question my mind that at the time of the murder Paul Hamwi was not here in There was just one problem that time we heard of Beckett" the hit man Paul Hamwi extradited on Monday to Broward where he as denied bail on two charges of first-degree murder plans to fight the allegations Paul is not said Mac Myers his Aspen attorney believes in the end he will be indicated So does David Bogenschutz savvy and expensive criminal defense lawyer from Broward County His client his entire when his ex-wife and daughter died Bogenschutz said Now the state wants to prosecute him Already Bogenschutz is shaping his trial strategy He may well put the blame back on the original defendant take a Rhodes scholar to figure out that John Purvis will be part of the he said But mother who exhausted her savings in endless appeals steadfastly maintains the innocence of her boy the son who in better days ferried elderly church members to doctor appointments the son who once refused to kill a poison toad even though its venom nearly proved fatal to his beloved French poodle Tufty Johnny she said is not at all capable of the crime that locked him prison for nine dark years always been a wonderful Christian Emma Jo Bartlett said the other day of the guards said they knew he belong there They said never seen a person as good as John Purvis MURDER FROM 10A strange thing happened Police hundreds of miles from Florida got a tip in the Hamwi case A young tough jailed for beating up his girlfriend told Aspen detecme Gary White that Paul Hamwi hired a hit man to kill Susan The kid knew the hit man He was his father White informed Broward police and prosecutors In the private files of the Broward State Office several memos indicate that prosecutors took the tip seriously Robert Carney the man who tned Purvis noted that Hamwi had been an early suspect the case but that police did a very slipshod job of investigating The case against Purvis he added was there was no physical evidence only a Purvis was retarded and the defense was that he would confess to anything Carney suggested that a state office investigator follow up One did to a point Investigator Barbara Barton complained that detective W'hite was slow to ship her notes about the possible hit man Robert Beckett Sr Furthermore his son Robbie Beckett Jr was a strong suspect in a California slaying of an 18-year-old woman W'est Coast authorities did not want to compromise that case by exposing him to questioning in the Hamwi matter In October 1985 Carney announced his candidacy for circuit court judge a goal he soon fulfilled That same month a discouraged Barton closed her investigation further work will be she wrote Briefly she changed her mind but the new effort too quickly expired So did a tandem but cursory investigation by Fort Lauderdale MIKE 8T0CKER Miami Herald Staff FRIENDLY FACE: John Purvis turns to his mother during court hearing that resulted in his freedom police Broward authorities later blamed the lapsed investigation on California and Colorado saying they were less than cooperative a point hotly contested If Broward investigators were so eager to explore the Hamwi connection W'est Coast officials ask why they fly to Aspen to investigate? want to sit here and throw rocks at Fort said W'hite now director of Colorado Mountain Law Enforcement Training Academy cases are very difficult especially when you have already convicted a man Maybe they could have substantiated the case maybe not But you never know until you A TIP REVISITED Suspect questioned 7V2 years later Lots of judges reviewed the Purvis case 19 by one count But only one Frank Johnson of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals dissented and found problems with the conviction Frustrated Nova University law professor Steven current attorney took his case to the now-defunct television show Final Appeal an offshoot of the popular Unsohed Ahstenes Prodded by calls from inquisitive TV researchers Fort Lauderdale detectives Tim Bronson and Case raises double jeopardy question Cleared of murder in one state man will be tried in another found on a door handle inside car Delaware requires that crimes be tried in the county where they occurred A key question in the first trial was how the state determined where Parker was killed since there was no corpse Prosecutor Timothy Barron said the case was tried in Kent County Del because was our best guess at the time Seven months after a Delaware jury acquitted Gillis body was found in a shallow grave just over the state line in Kent County Md Gillis remained free until July when a grand jury indicted him on a first-degree murder charge Kent County Circuit Judge Frederick Price ruled last month that while' double jeopardy is valid the state still can prosecute Public defender Stefan Skipp appealed this ruling on grounds that a second trial was unfair and Maryland was obliged to abide by the Delaware verdict Prosecutor Susanne Hay man argues the right to try Gillis by citing both the Supreme Court decision and Maryland law which presumes the crime occurred here if this is where the body was found In the US Supreme Court case Larry Heath was serving a life sentence in Georgia for killing his wife when Alabama extradited him for the same crime since she was kidnapped from that state The defense argued that trying Heath again put him double jeopardy The court disagreed Heath received the death penalty Alabama executed him last year CHESTERTOWN Md (AP) Three years ago Ronald Gillis walked out of a Delaware courthouse a free man acquitted of murdering a friend over a $1200 debt Now in jail in Maryland charged with the same slaying Double jeopardy? Not according to a 1985 Supreme Court ruling allowing prosecutors in two states to try a Georgia man for the same killing That ruling paved the way for vvliat some legal scholars see as an increase in cases that violate the constitutional protection against trying someone twice tor the same crime lot of the impetus has to do with the death said Richard Allen a Northwestern University law prolessor who argued the defense position in the Georgia case before the US Supreme Court person get a severe enough punishment in one state in one view so they bring another action in another he said a constitutional problem and grow- The American Bar Association is forming a task force to study the double jeopardy issue looking at successive trials in different states on the same charges and increasing attempts to try defendants in state and federal courts on similar charges Richard Kuh a former New York district attorney who suggested the ABA panel offers the Rodney King beating as an example In that case white police officers acquitted in a California state court in the beating of the black motorist are on trial federal court been offended by Kuh said people believe there is something fundamentally wrong or fundamentally unfair about trying someone twice for the same crime TOM SMITH ABA criminal justice section an interv tew lolates the concept of double jeopardy if not the very technical Tom Smith of the AB Vs criminal justice section in Washington said several federal cases have raised concerns about double jeopardy including that of former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford Clifford was indicted in federal court Washington and in state court in New York on similar bank fraud charges connected with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International scandal The state trial is set for March The federal trial has not been scheduled raises the issue of Smith said people believe there is something fundamentally wrong or fundamentally unfair about trying someone twice for the same The Gillis case in Maryland is unusual for several reasons The trial for the murder of By ron Parker was the first in Delaware in which authorities did not have the body The only evidence was that blood matching was Ben Ellis left and Matt Plunkett both 6 enjoy a ride on a tire swing while Brandon Newman 7 gets out of the way during recess on a cold winter day in Columbus Ohio last week Cigarette smugglers busy along Maine-Canada border Get Enough of The International Edition? Does your newsstand sell out of The Miami Herald International Edition? You can avoid the frustration of not finding the paper by having the International Edition delivered to your home or office For information please contact the distributor in your city The phone number is listed on page 2A the New Brunswick black market for The same carton purchased legally would cost CS55 or about $4350 in currency a Canadian dollar is currently worth about 79 cents Ironically most of the cigarettes smuggled into Canada are made there Canada does not tax tobacco exports and authorities say Canadian smokers prefer their own brands RCMP officers confiscated worth of cigarettes coming from Maine in 1992 compared with in 1989 Last month the FBI and RCMP busted an alleged smuggling ring accused of transporting worth of tobacco in 1992 stored on an Indian reservation Maine and taken by boat across Passamaquoddy Bay to New Brunswick at night But authorities say they are probably catching less than 10 percent of what is being smuggled border with New Brunswick is ideal for smuggling There are many roads but only the major crossings are monitored 24 hours a day The St John and St Croix rivers can be crossed by boat in the summer and snowmobile in the winter By ALLAN DOWD Reuters News Service MADAWASKA Maine Seventy years after bootleggers blazed trails through the back-woods of northern Maine to serve thirsty Americans during Prohibition smugglers are again hard at work along the rural border with Canada But now the contraband is flowing into Canada and the booty is not booze or even illegal drugs cigarettes Business is so good that smugglers are switching from marijuana to tobacco Canadian law enforcement officials say almost epidemic said Clive Cannon head of the Royal Canadian Mounted customs unit in New Brunswick a Canadian province bordering Maine to the north being done by everyone from mom and pop who fill their car trunk to highly organized The smugglers are taking advantage of high Canadian taxes part of an anti-smoking campaign which inflate the pnee of cigarettes to several times the cost in the United States Taxes account for 58 percent of the cost of cigarettes in New Brunswick A carton purchased for $16 Maine can be sold on A 1 4.