Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Ex-death row inmate has shot at a new life
He was a juvenile in 1981 when Miami couple murdered
Cleo Douglas LeCroy — previously on Florida’s death row for nearly 20 years for killing young newlyweds from Miami in 1981 — has a shot at being set free from prison.
A judge is set to give LeCroy, who is serving a life term, a new sentence Dec. 1, thanks to several high court rulings favoring people who were juveniles when they committed murder.
For the family of victims Gail and John Hardeman, gunned down by a 17-year-old LeCroy at a southwestern Palm Beach County hunting area, the possibility of seeing him walk is painful.
“I should never after all of these years be going through this,” said Ruth Haines, 81, mother of Gail. “To me, it should be life without parole.”
LeCroy should “rot in jail,” said David Hardeman, 61, whose older brother was fatally shot in the face. He
actually wishes it was still legal to execute juvenile killers. Since it’s not, LeCroy “should never be allowed to get out,” the Miami man said.
But LeCroy, now 54, is hoping to leave prison and move to Alabama where he would care for his elderly mom and draw support from a church program for released convicts.
“He’s hopeful, but he’s been through a lot,” said defense attorney James Eisenberg, who was LeCroy’s first court-appointed lawyer and still argues for his freedom three decades later. “I see no reason to deny this guy’s release.”
On and off death row
In the years after his arrest and convictions at a 1986 trial, LeCroy lost numerous appeals in the murder case that captivated South Florida.
LeCroy, who grew up in North Miami as the youngest of five children, has admitted he shot fellow hunters and campers John and Gail Hardeman within an Everglades wildlife preserve, about 16 miles south of Belle Glade and five miles from the nearest house.
Gail, a secretary for a ceramic tile company, was 24 when she died on Jan. 4, 1981. John, who worked as an exterminator for a pest control business, was 27 and the father of two boys, 5 and 3, from a previous marriage.
John Hardeman III, whose sons are now in their early 40s and raising five young kids, was killed by a shotgun blast to his face. His wife was shot at close range in the head, neck and chest with a .22-caliber gun.
Their bodies weren’t discovered until a week later, after LeCroy and his family assisted authorities in a massive search by air and land for the couple who disappeared a month before their first wedding anniversary.
LeCroy was sentenced to death for Gail’s murder and mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years for John’s murder, based on the jury’s recommendations. At that time, capital punishment for juveniles was legal.
He also was convicted of robbing his victims at the 4,400-acre Brown’s Farm Hunting Area. The motive for the killing: LeCroy wanted John’s new $100 rifle so he could sell it, prosecutors said at the trial.
Jon LeCroy, an older brother, also was charged with the murders, but was acquitted at a trial. He later confessed to the crimes at a 2003 court hearing, but a judge then ruled the statement could not be used to help Cleo LeCroy’s appeal for a lesser sentence or a new trial. Jon LeCroy has since died, says his brother’s lawyer.
In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for juveniles and Cleo LeCroy, without a hearing, was resentenced to life in prison for the slaying of Gail Hardeman.
Case for and against LeCroy
LeCroy’s lawyer argues the felon’s “tragic childhood” of physical and emotional abuse and neglect in a dysfunctional home is reason enough for the minimum possible punishment of 40 years in prison.
“Even his mother called him dumb,” Eisenberg wrote to the court. “He was picked on and tortured by his siblings.”
While LeCroy was diagnosed with severe brain damage as recently as 2002 — because of head-banging from the time he was a little boy until adolescence — he succeeded in getting his high school diploma in 2010, as well as certificates for other coursework and educational programs, court records show.
The attorney also points out that LeCroy has been written up for discipline problems only twice the entire time he’s been in prison, and held a job called “security orderly.”
But David Hardeman said he doesn’t care that LeCroy “has been a great boy in prison — he blew my brother’s face off.”
And Lisa Hardeman, John Hardeman’s now 81-year-old stepmother who lives near Asheville, N.C., said of LeCroy’s path through the criminal justice system: “What we have gone through as a family, it’s an affront.”
Ruth Haines, Gail Hardeman’s mom, also says she has no empathy for LeCroy, though she now opposes the death penalty because cases linger in the court system for decades.
From her Bonita Springs home on the state’s gulf coast, Haines says LeCroy was practically an adult when he killed, just two months before his 18th birthday.
Kathryn Nichols, who was John Hardeman’s first wife and the mother of his kids, said she wants the sentencing judge to know that “the loss of their father” affected the boys, Charles and Matthew, their whole lives.
“It was a senseless murder,” said Nichols, of St. Augustine, adding LeCroy “has no business being out.”
Juvenile justice reforms
In June, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Laura Johnson ordered LeCroy is entitled to a new sentence. She cited U.S. Supreme Court and Florida Supreme Court rulings since 2010 that have had major implications for juvenile criminals.
First, the nation’s High Court ruled it is cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, to give young criminals a life term with no chance for parole for crimes other than murder.
Then in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled mandatory life terms are unconstitutional for juveniles who kill.
That landmark ruling requires judges to take various factors into consideration before concluding a juvenile offender can never be free, including their level of maturity and the possibility for rehabilitation.
It still allows for life sentences when a juvenile’s crime is deemed so heinous and the possibility of rehabilitation is extremely slim.
Assistant State Attorney Andrew Slater has not yet made a recommendation for LeCroy’s new punishment. He could not be reached for comment, and the victim’s kin have said they were unaware of the resentencing until a reporter called.
In Florida, if a judge determines life in prison is not warranted, the minimum sentence for a young killer is 40 years, with a judicial review after 25 years, under a 2014 state law.
LeCroy’s lawyer says his client is the “poster child” for benefitting from the shift in how juveniles with violent pasts are treated by the court system.
“LeCroy’s history and transformation while in prison to a responsible adult is remarkable,” Eisenberg told the Sun Sentinel, citing a consultant’s finding that LeCroy is “now no danger whatsoever to society.”
He said LeCroy is entitled to credit for the nearly 37 years he’s been locked up, as well as a massive amount of “gain time” for good behavior. By Eisenberg’s calculation, LeCroy could be eligible for release almost immediately under even a 50 to 60-year sentence.
A state Supreme Court ruling last year turned out to be the final boost for LeCroy’s bid to re-enter free society. That ruling, in a 1990 murder case from Broward, found that a life sentence including the possibility of parole after 25 years for a juvenile was unconstitutional. Justice Barbara Pariente, in her majority opinion, wrote the state’s parole system didn’t make any accommodations for youthful offenders.
The court decisions have brought a wave of resentencing hearings for juvenile criminals, “notwithstanding how horrific the crimes were for the victims’ families,” said Stephen K. Harper, a former defense attorney now on the law school faculty at Florida International University.
“The facts of the cases are never good,” said Harper, the former head of the juvenile division at the MiamiDade Public Defender’s Office. “But kids are significantly and constitutionally different from adults, and the Supreme Court has found kids clearly deserve a second chance.”