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Editorial: Scott owes Floridians answer on clemency decision

 
Published Oct. 1, 2015

Let's get this straight. The prosecutor who offered probation to a man later convicted for firing a warning shot now argues that he be kept in prison for his full 20-year sentence. The governor who signed into law a change to provide flexibility in cases like this one sides with the prosecutor and denies clemency without comment. And taxpayers will pay for the man's lengthy prison stay when there is no public evidence he is a threat to society. That is indefensible, and Gov. Rick Scott owes Floridians an explanation for this apparent injustice and waste of public money.

Scott denied clemency this week to Orville "Lee" Wollard, a 60-year-old with a spotless prison disciplinary record who likely would be a free man if current state law were applied to his case. Wollard was arrested in 2008 after he fired a warning shot in the direction of his daughter's boyfriend. The bullet hit a wall, and no one was hurt. Police reports show that the boy had torn five stitches in Wollard's abdomen.

Prosecutors offered Wollard a plea deal of five years on probation, but Wollard did not want a felony on his record and chose to go to trial. He was found guilty of aggravated assault with a firearm and sentenced to 20 years in prison because of Florida's minimum mandatory sentencing laws. His case became a lightning rod for opponents of minimum mandatory sentences around the country. Florida legislators considered Wollard last year when they rewrote state law to prohibit people from being charged with a crime for firing a warning shot after feeling threatened. Scott signed the bill into law.

Yet now the governor refuses to grant clemency in the very situation current law addresses. Prosecutors and the Florida Commission on Offender Review fought against Wollard's release, citing a secret report that is exempt from public records under state law. State Attorney Jerry Hill, the prosecutor in the case, did not mention during this week's clemency meeting that he had offered Wollard probation in a plea deal before the trial. And now Wollard will remain in prison for another 13 years at taxpayer expense. This is a ridiculous outcome in a case where the punishment far outweighs the crime.

Wollard's situation illustrates everything wrong with minimum mandatory sentences that give judges no discretion to hand down appropriate punishments that reflect specific circumstances. There is no public reason to deny Wollard's clemency request. If private documents tell a different story, the public has a right to know. The governor should order the release of the commission's report, and he should explain his reasoning for denying clemency to Wollard when current state law addresses exactly this situation.