Rolling appeals as death date looms

http://www.alligator.org/pt2/061012rolling.php

Rolling appeals as death date looms





By DOMINICK TAO


Alligator Writer

Rolling attempts to delay lethal injection



If Florida's highest court rejects Danny Rolling's latest appeal to halt his execution, the convicted killer may still have other options to stay alive.



"It's always possible for him to seek another temporary stay of execution," said Spencer Mann, an investigator with the state attorney's office in Gainesville.



Rolling's attorney, Baya Harrison III, filed a notice of appeal Monday and can submit supporting facts to the state Supreme Court until 3 p.m. today. Time for arguments before the court regarding Rolling's appeal has been reserved for Wednesday.



Mann, who was the spokesman for the Alachua County Sheriff's Office during the 1990 murder investigation, said he expects the Florida Supreme Court to deny Rolling's motion to overturn the death sentence.



"He's not challenging his guilt," Mann said. "It's a situation where he just doesn't want to die."
If Rolling's lawyer cannot convince the Florida Supreme Court to delay his client's scheduled Oct. 25 lethal injection, Mann said it is possible for Rolling to take his case as far as the U.S. Supreme Court.



If he did, it would be Rolling's second time requesting that the U.S. Supreme Court overturn a Florida Supreme Court's decision. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal of the death sentence.



Mann said Harrison's appeal strategy is very predictable.



That strategy, Mann said, consists of an indefinite series of appeals that has been "taking way too long."



Rolling has been on death row since 1994. His trial, earlier that year, came four years after he murdered five UF and SFCC students.