- The Verdict - Page 233

Forty-six

In 1982, William Duane was a thirty-four-year-old trial attorney in Orlando. He had recently tried two high-profile cases, including the defense of the so-called "Pershing Plowshares" anti-war protesters, who had been charged with trespass during their demonstration at the Martin Marietta production plant in Orange county.

Duane found himself with some free time. He volunteered for a pro bono case, and was asked to briefly represent a Death Row inmate whose Supreme Court writ had recently been denied, and who was about to go on active warrant.

The job would last only a few days, Duane was told; he only had to fill in some forms and file a petition that would delay the execution and allow the inmate to start a second series of appeals.

The inmate was Tommy Zeigler. The cost of his trial defense had long ago exhausted Zeigler's own estate and had nearly crippled his mother's. Tom, Sr., had died in 1980. Tom and Beulah closed the furniture store in 1977, and sold it at a loss two years later. The apartments had gone to pay Hadley, Davids, and the investigators at trial; Davids had worked mostly without fee in preparing the first appeal.

As Duane remembers it, he nearly rejected the request to represent Zeigler, even for a few days. During 1976, Duane had worked for the U.S. Attorney's office in Orlando. He had socialized with sheriff's officers and some of Robert Eagan's assistants, and he had heard the stories. Tommy Zeigler was a dog-mutilating homosexual who had ruined everybody's Christmas in 1975.

"Zeigler was guilty as hell, and everybody knew it, even before the trial," Duane said recently, recalling the early months of 1976. "You would hear these stories that weren't getting into the newspaper, testimony from the grand jury about what a vicious asshole Tommy Zeigler was. That was the scoop. All the insiders knew it. Everybody knew that Zeigler got what was coming to him."

In six years since then, Duane had heard nothing that changed his mind. Zeigler was, literally, the last man Duane wanted to represent.

But he relented: it was only a few days, and he would have advice from other attorneys who specialized in death penalty appeals. Vernon Davids and Leslie Gift, now married and living in the town of Englewood on the Gulf Coast, agreed to help him with the brief.

Duane had no experience in death penalty issues. He remembers calling an assistant attorney general and naively requesting a few extra days to prepare his case. The man seemed almost amused as he denied the request: "It was the most