Shaky evidence put Toronto man in U.S. prison for life,
Parole could take until 2046 for man convicted on shaky evidence
Almost three decades ago, a jury in Florida convicted ayoung Canadian misfit of gunning down an acquaintance after what was potentially a death-penalty trial that in essence lasted only seven hours.
He was sentenced to life. And with that, the state’s prison system swallowed Toronto-born William Russell (Russ) Davies. For 30 years, it has refused to spit him back out. While his five co-accused walked free long ago, Davies’ presumptive parole date is another 30 years away.
“I have been in the worst s---bag institutions that the state of Florida has,” Davies, 48, said in a recent prison interview. “I have lived in a hell that you probably have watched on television and don’t really have a grasp of.”
Davies was involved in a serious crime, so it’s no surprise he found himself enmeshed in the steely maw of Florida’s justice system. Yet police and court records and years of post-conviction documentation suggest Davies fell victim to an overworked system that placed expedi- ency above justice, then threw up a wall of indifference.
“We’ve been voices crying in the wilderness about this,” said Loftus Cuddy, a now-retired Toronto lawyer who believes Davies’ conviction on first-degree murder was a travesty. At minimum, Cuddy said, the evidence presented at trial reveals considerable reasonable doubt.
Davies was just shy of 18 in spring 1986, when he pinched a credit card and cash from his mother’s wallet and left home in Richmond Hill. He made it across the border in a car stolen from his boss at the Tim Hortons and hightailed it to Daytona Beach, Fla. It was the culmination of years of skipped school, defiance, strained relations with his parents and petty crime. “I was just being a dummy. I didn’t want to hear nothing. That’s all. I was a kid that thought I knew everything and nobody could tell me nothing. That’s the truth of it,” Davies says now.
Within weeks, he had fallen in with “The Family,” a rougher older group of shiftless louts whose existence revolved around stealing alcohol and cigarettes, and drinking themselves blind.
They went roaring around Daytona Beach and taking whatever street drugs they could get their hands on. It was, Davies says, crazy and out of control, but the rebellious teen loved it.
One day in June, 1986, members of “The Family” did what they did best: They stocked up on beer and drove around.
Behind the wheel of the Cadillac up front was George (Georgie) Hughes. Next to him were Carrie (Ma) Parker and Timothy (Big Tim) Hagen. Passing in and out on the back seat was a very drunk James (Jimbo) Noojin.
Following the Caddy was Chaney in his Mercury Cougar with John (John-John) Cavallaro next to him. An unhappy Davies was in the back. Chaney was drunk and driving over curbs.
Late that evening, the two cars drove into a secluded wooded area in Tomoka State Park.
What exactly transpired is now impossible to discern because of conflicting witness accounts. But here’s how Davies, who had just turned 18, says it went down:
Chaney was talking trash and Davies says he walked over and hit him on the side of the head with a gun, which went off, the bullet whizzing by Hagen into the woods. Chaney fell to the ground.
“I froze when the gun went off. I’m scared to death. I don’t know what to do. I’m stuck,” Davies alleges.
Hagen, angry at the gunplay, walked over to see what had happened to Chaney, who by some accounts was snoring, by others was in his death throes. Hagen twice slapped Chaney, who Davies says was trying to get up, and said, “He’s all right.” At that point, however, Davies alleges Cavallaro went over, grabbed the gun from him, kicked Chaney in the jaw, put the gun under his chin and shot him.
Chaney’s decomposing remains were found a month later. In his pocket was identification and registration papers for his Cougar. Police soon arrested all the men present the night he was killed.
Davies, however, had already been arrested within days of the killing for an unrelated offence.
For reasons that remain unclear — but possibly because he lied about his age — Davies was placed in a juvenile detention centre, where, weeks later, police would arrest and charge him in Chaney’s death.
There is no evidence they attempted to reach his parents or notify Canadian consular officials. Davies refused to talk to investigators, insisting he see a lawyer.
Initially, all six were charged with first-degree murder. Raymond Cass, a legal-aid lawyer, was appointed to defend them.
At one point, Davies says, he was taken to an interview room and confronted by the investigating officer, prosecutor and two correctional officers. Cass, who was supposed to have been there, was absent. What really drew his attention, Davies says, was a detailed drawing of an electric chair on the back wall, with the monikers of his co-accused on each side. On the seat, in bold letters, was written “Russ,” Davies says.
Eventually Cass told Davies he was withdrawing from the case on the grounds of “irreconcilable conflict.” Davies’ co-accused, some housed together in prison, were brokering plea deals. The shifting finger of blame was coming to point squarely at the Canadian teen.
In mid-October, Carmen Corrente, since named assistant attorney general, was appointed to defend Davies.
The new lawyer seemed to view the case as an “inconvenience,” Davies says, spending little time talking to him. While Corrente pushed his client to plead out, Davies refused, insisting he hadn’t killed Chaney.
Despite repeated requests, Cor- rente refused to discuss the case with The Canadian Press.
By the time Davies got to trial in March 1988, his five co-accused had pleaded guilty to lesser crimes such as accessory after the fact. All were handed sentences ranging from probation to five years.
Cavallaro, who most everyone agrees fired the second shot, pleaded guilty to attempted murder and got 12 years. He was released in 1990, after serving just two years. The Canadian Press tried to contact him in prison — he is there for an unrelated offence — but received no response.
In the end, Davies alone stood trial for Chaney’s killing.
“I realized I was in deep s--- when I was absolutely by myself and there was no one in the entire world that was going to do or say anything on my behalf,” Davies says. State of Florida vs. William Russell Davies Transcripts of the trial’s opening statements have long been shredded, Florida prosecutors say. But Davies says Corrente promised jurors he would testify. The lawyer later acknowledged that he told the jury he also would call co-accused Tim Hagen, whose testimony might have altered the course of the trial. But Corrente called neither to the stand.
Over the next day and half, prosecutor Gene White called seven witnesses, including the investigating officer, who had taken statements from all the men except Cavallaro, the man Davies says actually killed Chaney. Also testifying was the man who found the body, a medical examiner, and a prison guard who told jurors Davies had confessed — a version disputed by Davies and by other cellblock inmates, according to their affidavits. The defence interviewed none of them.
The prosecution’s star witness was Jimbo Noojin, who claimed to have seen Chaney being shot in the head by Davies — while drunkenly relieving himself, seven metres away, by the light of the moon.
The defence called just one witness: an anthropologist who examined Chaney’s skeletal remains. He testified the bullet had entered under the victim’s chin and exited through the top of his head — consistent with Davies’ assertion that Cavallaro had shot him as he lay on the ground. In closing arguments, White stressed the bad blood between Davies and Chaney. He highlighted Noojin’s testimony, the guard’s recounting of the confession, and a note Davies allegedly wrote in prison in which he said he was thinking of pleading guilty.
Corrente admitted to jurors he had made mistakes — including promising to call witnesses and then not calling them.
“I apologize for misleading you,” he told the jury, before a contradictory closing statement in which he argued the state had failed to prove Davies had planned the killing or fired the fatal shot. At most, Corrente said, his client was guilty of aggravated battery.
Less than two hours later, jurors returned a unanimous verdict: Guilty of first-degree murder. Davies sat stone-faced, stunned, while breaking out in hives. His mother, Carol Davies, collapsed in hysterics, sobbing: “My baby, my baby.”
Upon sentencing, the jury recommended life with no parole for at least 25 years. Judge Kim Hammond agreed.
“You have been a burden to humankind,” Hammond said. “You will live in your own kind of hell on Earth, that is unless you find another way.”
Corrente filed an appeal a month later. The Appeal Court rejected it without saying why. Instead, Davies began pushing to serve his sentence in Canada. In 2003, documents show, Canada agreed to take him back.
But Florida refused then and ever since to let him go. Officials, including the state governor and the head of the transfer program, ignored requests for comment.
What is clear is Florida adheres to a “life means life” world view, while Canada hews to the philosophy that criminals should eventually get the opportunity to turn their lives around.
Except for the most hardened, incorrigible killers, people convicted in Canada seldom see even two decades behind bars. Had the same crime been committed here, legal experts say, the odds are slim Davies would have been convicted of first-degree in the first place, or still been behind bars 30 years later.
An application made almost two years ago to transfer to Canada to be closer to his ailing parents is still somewhere in the bureaucratic maze, although Correctional Services Canada has done legwork on what supports Davies might have if he does return.
Florida denied prisoner #111211 parole last year. He can ask again in 2019 — considered a small victory — but his current presumptive parole date is 2046.
Davies has, he insists, become a much better person, a change his parents and supporters say is real. “I was just ashamed to the core of my existence that I had kissed an entire life away and created an entire life of victims and people that I hurt, and I said, ‘I refuse to let that continue.’ ”