MARTIN LEE ANDERSON: Boot Camp Trial Day 7

WMBB News 13 - Florida
Thursday, Oct 11, 2007

Martin Lee Anderson: Full boot camp trial coverage

Panama City, FL - Closing arguments take place today in the case against eight former boot camp employees.

Henry Dickens, Charles Enfinger, Patrick Garrett, Raymond Hauck, Charles Helms, Henry McFadden, Kristin Schmidt, and Joseph Walsh are charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child after the January 2006 death of a juvenile offender.

Martin Anderson, 14, died the day after he collapsed during exercises on his first day at the Bay County boot camp. If convicted, the defendants face up to 30 years in prison.

The defense rested its case as testimony ended Wednesday night about 7:30 p.m.

After the defense rested, Judge Michael Overstreet told the jury they deserved some rest, so he said court would begin today at 10:00 a.m. Closing arguments are the only event scheduled.

Before closing arguments began, Judge Overstreet explained one of jurors had fallen ill, and attorneys had agreed he should be released to seek medical treatment. He also stated defendant Joseph Walsh, who had to be taken to the hospital after become sick yesterday, would not be in court today as a result.

Mike Sinacore began closing arguments for the prosecution. "By 1:52 a.m. January 6, 2006, Martin Lee Anderson was dead. But he really died January 5th. He died at the hands and under the care of the defendants," Sinacore told jurors.

He said this case isn't about Bay County versus Hillsborough County. He told the jury this is about the jury giving their best effort to reach a decision.

Sinacore then proceeded to show the jury clips from the surveillance video of the Anderson incident, including all three ammonia capsule applications the prosecution says helped suffocate the teen.

He also presented a timeline of the incident, along with some of the definitions of child neglect and culpable negligence.

Sinacore was still presenting arguments at 12:15 p.m. "It’s not a coincidence that right at the time ammonia had been applied for 5 minutes, after ammonia had been applied two previous times … that all those things combined, it just so happens that the culmination of one ammonia application after another was that Martin Lee Anderson happened to go into a coma after his first sickle cell collapse. If you don’t believe they didn’t contribute to the death, that’s what you have to believe," Sinacore told the jury.

Court broke for lunch at 12:45 p.m. and resumed at 1:45 p.m. Sinacore spoke for a few minutes, ending by asking the jury to consider all the evidence and find the defendants guilty as charged.

Bob Sombathy began speaking for the defense around 1:50 p.m. Sombathy pointed out that Dr. Vernard Adams, the Tampa medical examiner who says Anderson died from suffocation at the hands of the defendants, admitted under oath that the medical evidence did point to sickle cell collapse, but he used the video tape to come to his conclusion.

Around 2:30 p.m., Jonathan Dingus took over for the defense. "The doctors at Bay Medical and Sacred Heart didn’t even know he had it. If they didn’t catch it, how can you expect these men and this woman to know what exertional sickle cell attack is?" Dingus asked the jury.

Defense attorney Bob Pell, who repesents Walsh, began at about 2:45 p.m. He pointed out the contradictions between Dr. Adams' testimony and that of Dr. Randy Eichner, a hematologist and sickle cell expert who was the defense's last witness.

"Dr. Adams says it’s common sense, if you’re blocking part of the mouth, you’re blocking part of the airway. Dr. Eichner says take a deep breath through your nose, take a deep breath through your mouth. It’s the same volume... That’s a red herring. He could’ve run that with masking tape over his mouth and still gotten air," said Pell.

Schmidt's lawyer, Ashley Benedik, and Jim White also addressed the jury.

Waylon Graham, who represents Helms, then talked about the publicity surrounding the case.

Walter Smith and then Hoot Crawford ended closing arguments for the the defense. Crawford reminded the jury that justice could be served by a not guilty verdict. His closing arguments ended with a video showing clips from testimony given during the trial.

The prosecution was allowed the chance to present a rebuttal closing argument. Prosecutor Scott Harmon said the defendants are not the victims in this case.

"That 14 year old boy is never going to grow up, he's never going to do the thing everyone else has done," said Harmon.

Closing arguments ended around 7:00 p.m. The judge then dismissed the jury and asked them to return at 9:00 a.m. The jury will be given their instructions and allowed to deliberate.

Martin Anderson's father was present for closing arguments. Robert Anderson had been in a group of several people ordered out of the courtroom by the judge yesterday for making comments during testimony. Court officials say Judge Overstreet has allowed Robert Anderson to return to the courtroom for the rest of the trial, but he is the only one of the group allowed to do so.

Former Bay County Sheriff and former Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Guy Tunnell was in the audience today. Tunnell founded the boot camp in 1994 when he was sheriff. Tunnell resigned from the FDLE in April 2006 after it was revealed he made comments about civil rights leaders who were protesting Martin Anderson's death.

Boot Camp Trial Examines Cause Of Death

CBS NEWS

Article
Examiner Who Performed first Autopsy Testifies Sickle Cell Trait Caused Teen's Death
October 10, 2007

(CBS/AP) The medical examiner who performed the first autopsy on a 14-year-old boy who died at a Florida juvenile boot camp testified Wednesday in the manslaughter trial of seven guards and a nurse that he found no signs of serious injury or trauma.

Martin Lee Anderson's cause of death was from internal hemorrhaging brought on from sickle cell trait, a previously undiagnosed blood disorder that can limit cells from carrying oxygen during physical stress, Dr. Charles Siebert testified.

Prosecutors say the guards suffocated Anderson during a beating by covering his mouth, making him inhale ammonia and failing to respond to his medical distress.

Earlier, Judge Michael Overstreet told the boy's father, Robert Anderson, to leave the courtroom, saying he was making noise. Anderson said during a lunch break he did not make any noises in court and blamed the disruption on a text message he said defense attorneys sent to someone seated near him.

Earlier Wednesday, the boy's mother, Gina Jones, sobbed loudly and briefly left the courtroom, saying "I cannot take it" as a guard described striking the teen's arm in a videotaped altercation. She declined to speak to reporters outside court.

The parents have repeatedly watched a video of the guards hitting and kneeing the limp, unresponsive boy.

The teen's death in 2006 and the 30-minute beating led Florida lawmakers to order that all such camps be shut down.

Guard Charles Enfinger described Wednesday the repeated hammer blows he delivered to Anderson's arm after the teen collapsed while running laps. Enfinger said that he and others were trying to "motivate" the boy.

Attorney Robert Sombathy asked Siebert whether "knee strikes, arm-bar takedowns, pressure points, ammonia capsules or yelling in loud voices," led to Anderson's death.

"No it did not," Siebert said.

Although it seemed "counterintuitive" the strikes were actually arousing Anderson and "probably keeping him alive," Siebert said.

Two medical experts, including one who performed a second autopsy after Anderson's body was exhumed as part of the investigation into his death, testified for the prosecution earlier in the trial that they believed the guards actions did contribute to Anderson's death.

One doctor said the Anderson died from a combination of his blood cells sickeling and from a lack of oxygen caused by the guards. A second doctor said the guards' clamping their hands over Anderson's mouth and depriving him of oxygen would have killed him without the underlying sickle cell trait.

Guard Henry McFadden testified that Anderson asked to be taken to a hospital during the 30-minute ordeal and told the guards he could not breathe or see. But he and other guards have said they thought the boy was faking his problems.

Also Wednesday, guard Joseph Walsh II testified that he noticed Anderson on the boy's first day at the camp because he used profanity.

"There is no profanity at the boot camp," Walsh said. "They are instructed not to speak without permission to speak."

Walsh said that began the chain of events, which ended when Anderson was carried off by paramedics on a stretcher.

When Anderson's body went limp, Walsh said, he suspected Anderson of feigning illness because that was something common among the youths in the camp.

"Had you seen this before in the boot camp? Was this a common tactic in the boot camp, to go completely limp like a rag doll," asked Robert Pell, Walsh's attorney.

Walsh said it was.

Walsh also said he threw the ammonia capsules he used on Anderson over the camp fence because they had the teen's saliva on them and he did not want to put them in his pocket.

The guards and nurse face up to 30 years in prison if convicted of aggravated manslaughter of a child.

This case has spurred action from a House panel that begin looking into charges of child abuse and neglect at residential treatment facilities.

Testimony is expected from parents whose children have died in boot-camp programs. The lawmakers will consider whether the privately run facilities should fall under federal regulation.

Second autopsy scrutinized in third day of boot camp trial

Article
October 5, 2007
By David Angier
The News Herald

PANAMA CITY

The medical examiner who performed the second autopsy on Martin Lee Anderson’s body said today that his opinion as to the cause of death was a historical first because the situation surrounding Anderson’s death was one-of-a-kind.

Tampa Medical Examiner Vernard Adams said sickle cell trait played no — or little — role in Anderson’s death. His opinion conflicts with two state experts who testified Thursday that Anderson would have lived through his encounter with boot camp drill instructors if he did not have the hereditary blood disorder.

“What you see in the videotape,” Adams said, referring to a recording of the encounter between Anderson and the drill instructors on Jan. 5, 2006, “is sufficient to kill someone without sickle cell trait.”

Adams said his 12-hour second autopsy of Anderson’s body was not as informational as the videotape. The autopsy was mainly to rule out other potential causes of death and his opinion was not bolstered by anything he discovered in the examination.

“The actions of the guards, especially at the end of the tape, caused his death,” Adams said.

“Are you saying they smothered this young man to death?” defense attorney Waylon Graham asked him.

“Yes,” Adams replied.

Former boot camp drill instructors Henry Dickens, Charles Enfinger, Patrick Garrett, Raymond Hauck, Charles Helms Jr., Henry McFadden Jr. and Joseph Walsh II, along with former camp nurse Kristin Schmidt, face charges of aggravated manslaughter of a child and 30 years in prison each if convicted as charged.

They’re accused of culpable negligence in 14-year-old Anderson’s death. Anderson died Jan. 6, 2006, after collapsing during his initiation into the camp.

The trial, held inside the Bay County Juvenile Justice Courthouse on 11th Street, began

Wednesday and is expected to end Oct. 12 or 13. Testimony resumes at 8:30 a.m. Monday.

Defense attorney Bob Sombathy said deaths from exertional sickle cell trait collapse are rare, but the number of recorded deaths by spasms caused by smelling salts is “one” — Anderson’s.

“This boot camp was the only place in the world where ammonia capsules were used in this way,” Adams said. “So where else could such a death occur?”

“So if your interpretation of the video is wrong, then your cause of death is wrong,” Sombathy said.

“Yes,” Adams said.

Graham asked Adams about the pressure he was under to come up with an alternative opinion than the highly criticized one offered by Panama City Medical Examiner Charles Siebert Jr.

Adams said he was aware of the way Siebert was “vilified” and said, “I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

Adams said he was not motivated or pressured into a finding that would keep him from being criticized. He said he expected criticism and objected to Graham’s term “safe opinion.”

“No matter what I opined, I would be criticized from one quarter or another,” he said.

MORE NEWS: Medical examiner denies he was pressured to blame guards, nurse in teen's boot camp death

Article
By Emanuella Grinberg
Court TV

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — A medical examiner said Friday that he was aware of tremendous political pressure to "resolve" the case of a teen who died after an altercation with guards at a Florida boot camp for juvenile offenders.

But Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams insisted that the pressure did not influence his opinion that Martin Lee Anderson, 14, died from suffocation at the hands of eight boot camp employees.

"I wasn't just working for my county. I felt an obligation to do a good job for Florida," Adams said.

Drill instructors Henry Dickens, Charles Enfinger, Patrick Garrett, Raymond Hauck, Charles Helms Jr., Henry McFadden Jr., Joseph Walsh and nurse Kristin Schmidt each face up to 30 years in prison if convicted of aggravated manslaughter of a person under 18 for the teen's death.

The eight defendants, ages 30 to 60, say Anderson provoked the encounter by refusing to participate in a 1.5-mile mandatory run to gauge his fitness.

A surveillance video of the altercation shows the guards manhandling the teen, covering his mouth and waving ammonia capsules in his face on three separate occasions, once for as long as five minutes, while Anderson appeared to pass in and out of consciousness.

The incident sparked a national debate over safety in the paramilitary-style boot camps, resulting in the closure of similar programs in Florida. A federal investigation is also pending into reports of child abuse at boot camps across the country.

Anderson's death also resulted in the dismissal of the state's top law enforcement agent, Guy Tunnell, who, as sheriff of Bay County in the 1990s, created the Bay County Boot Camp.

Adams was the second medical examiner to perform an autopsy on Anderson after he died on Jan. 6, 2006, less than 24 hours after entering the Bay County Boot Camp for violating his parole on a grand theft auto charge.

Charlie Siebert, the first pathologist to examine Anderson's body, concluded that he died of complications from sickle-cell trait, a genetic disorder that impedes the flow of oxygen in the blood.

His findings provoked allegations of a cover-up by the Bay County Sheriff's Office, which operated the boot camp in Panama City. In response, former Gov. Jeb Bush appointed a team of special prosecutors from Hillsborough County, who ordered the second autopsy.

Adams denied that the fate of Siebert, who faced public condemnation and lost his job after releasing his findings, had any effect on his report, as a defense lawyer for Helms suggested.

"You didn't want to wind up like Charlie Siebert?" attorney Waylon Graham asked as he paced across the courtroom. "So you wrote a safe report that insulated you from what Charles Siebert went through?"

"I could not know what the reaction was going to be," Adams said. "I had to assume that, no matter what I opined, I would be criticized from one quarter or another."

In a lively exchange with Graham, who has taken charge of most of the questioning of the state's witnesses, Adams also downplayed the attorney's characterization of the investigation as "the autopsy of the century."

Siebert was on hand for the examination, along with representatives from the state attorney's office and famed pathologist Michael Baden, a forensic consultant hired by the Anderson family, who testified in the murder trial of music producer Phil Spector.

Even though Baden was "kind of a pest," Adams said, he let him observe the proceedings, but refused his request to use the scalpel on the exhumed body.

Adams also denied that he was favoring Anderson's family by permitting Baden to attend while denying Siebert's request to have a medical examiner from Fort Myers accompany him.

"I didn't need extra bodies cluttering the room," Adams said, prompting gasps from both the defendants' supporters, sitting on one side of the room, and the Anderson family across the aisle.

Adams acknowledged that before he performed the autopsy in March 2006, Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober told him the governor was "leaning" on him to resolve the case.

But, Adams insisted, Ober never compelled him to reach a conclusion.

"He told me, 'You don't worry about that. Take your time. Do whatever you have to do,'" Adams said. "He didn't care what the outcome was, as long as there was an outcome of some kind."

Adams said he concluded that the teen died of suffocation arising from the guards' excessive use of ammonia capsules while they covered his mouth without giving him a chance to recover.

The doctor said the lack of oxygen prevented Anderson's blood from producing carbon dioxide, leading to a build-up of lactic acid in his blood that ultimately put him in an irreversible coma.

The pathologist acknowledged that the teen's sickle-cell condition aggravated the circumstances by further impeding the flow of oxygen. He insisted, however, that the guards' actions alone would have been enough to kill even a teen who did not have sickle-cell trait.

Defense lawyers contend that Anderson would have died regardless of the former boot camp employees' actions because of his condition, which they were unaware of.

"If Martin Anderson fell during the run because of sickle-cell trait, but for the actions of the guards, would he have lived?" assistant state attorney Michael Sinacore asked Adams.

"Yes," he testified. "No ammonia, no hands, no restraint ... there would be no opinion, because he is alive."

Adams said the guards' excessive use of ammonia made the case one of a kind.

His findings mirrored those of another state medical expert who testified Thursday that the use of the ammonia capsules were the "tipping point" in causing the teen's death.

On Friday, the jury learned that the highly concentrated ammonia capsules used by the guards were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use on children.

Toxicologist Cynthia Lewis-Younger testified that the toxic effects of ammonia increase with prolonged exposure and within a confined space.

Prosecutors say the guards covered Anderson's mouth and administered the ammonia on three occasions: once for 54 seconds, again for 57 seconds, and during a five-minute period that was broken up into three episodes.

Lewis-Younger testified that though there were no documented incidents of anyone dying from inhalation of ammonia capsules, she would not rule out the possibility.

The trial will resume Monday.

Isabelle Zehnder: CAICA: No blacks among boot-camp trial jurors

Potential jurors, top, wait to see if they are dismissed from jury duty in the boot-camp-death trial at the Marina Civic Center in Panama City on Wednesday.''It is unfortunate the pool is not more representative. It sounds like the defense got what they wanted as for a racial mix on the jury.'' Michael Seigel University of Florida's Levin College of Law professor

Article
September 27, 2007
By Stephen D. Price

PANAMA CITY - No black jurors were chosen for the boot-camp trial of seven drill instructors and a camp nurse charged in the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson.

Gina Jones, Anderson's mother who has long said she did not want the trial to happen in Bay County, was not happy with the jury's racial makeup.

''I'm very disappointed,'' she said.

Jury selection concluded Wednesday evening at the Marina Civic Center in the controversial, racially charged case, after three days in which attorneys went through a list of more than 1,400 potential jurors.

The trial will begin Oct. 3.

Anderson was black, two of the defendants are black, one is Asian and five are white. The case has divided opinion in Bay County largely along racial lines. Civil rights advocates around the state and country have called for ''justice'' for Anderson.

''It is unfortunate the pool is not more representative,'' said Professor Michael Seigel of the University of Florida's Levin College of Law and former Tampa Bay federal prosecutor. ''It sounds like the defense got what they wanted as for a racial mix on the jury.''

The county is 83 percent white and 11 percent black.

Charged with felony aggravated manslaughter of a child are Henry Dickens, Charles Enfinger, Patrick Garrett, Raymond Hauck, Charles Helms Jr., Henry McFadden Jr., Joseph Walsh II and the camp nurse, Kristin Schmidt.

A jury of six will decide the trial's outcome, and four have been chosen as alternates. All the jurors are white except for one man who is Asian. Attorneys in the case and court officials would not say who will be on the jury of six and who will be alternates for the trial. The jury pool has four men and six women.

Anderson died Jan. 6, 2006, a day after he was hit, kicked and kneed by drill instructors at the Bay County boot camp, after he had collapsed while running laps. The incident was captured on videotape.

An initial autopsy said Anderson died from natural causes from complications caused by a blood disorder, sickle-cell trait. A second autopsy said he died from being suffocated when guards clamped his mouth shut and held ammonia tablets to his nose for several minutes.

Seigel said the racial makeup of the jury doesn't mean it won't judge the trial fairly, but added, ''This could be a factor if they're acquitted and if a federal prosecutor second-guesses the jury.''

U.S. Attorney Gregory Miller, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice are still investigating the case.

During jury selection, five black potential jurors were dismissed, mostly by defense attorneys. One 20-year-old woman was dismissed because she had a cousin who knew Anderson.

''I believe there is a close relation between her and Martin Lee Anderson,'' said defense attorney Walter Smith, who represents Enfinger. ''She has very little life experience. We generally want someone who has life experience.''

Assistant State Attorney Scott Harmon complained the defense had already struck down four blacks from the jury pool.

But Bay County Circuit Judge Michael Overstreet said, ''I believe there is a close relation between her and Martin Lee Anderson.''

Of the 10 jurors that made the cut, one man said he knew defendant Dickens' wife, and another said she knew one of the defense attorneys, Jonathan Dingus.

Another potential black juror was dismissed because defense attorneys said he was familiar with sickle-cell disease and may challenge their expert testimony.

''That's a bona fide concern for either side,'' Overstreet said, before dismissing that juror.

The trial will take place at the Bay County Juvenile Justice Courthouse where Overstreet has requested security escorts for defense attorneys and security at the courthouse for the defendants as they leave and enter.