Jeffrey Joseph Daugherty was 20 years old in the winter of 1976, when he left Michigan for Florida with his girlfriend and his uncle. Over the next twenty days, according to the courts that later reviewed his case, he and his girlfriend carried out a run of robberies and killings that moved from Florida to Pennsylvania and ended with their arrest in Virginia on March 12, 1976.
He was convicted of four murders. A Pennsylvania jury found him guilty in 1976 of killing Elizabeth Shank, a store clerk in Blair County. In 1980 he pleaded guilty in Florida to the murders of Carmen Abrams, Betty Campbell and Lavonne Patricia Sailer. A fifth conviction, for the killing of an 18-year-old gas station attendant, George Karnes, was reversed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1981 because of pretrial publicity. The Sailer case brought a death sentence. After years of appeals in state and federal courts, the United States Supreme Court denied his last applications for a stay of execution on November 7, 1988.
Little is known of his early life. The story begins with the journey: Daugherty, his girlfriend, B.H., and his uncle left Michigan in January 1976 and traveled to Florida.
His childhood surfaced only in the mitigation evidence his lawyers offered when he faced a death sentence. The Florida courts list "unstable family life" among the factors he raised, and a psychologist who testified in a later hearing described a deprived childhood. His own lawyers, in their final motion for a stay of execution in 1988, called the evidence of his "unstable home life and upbringing" uncontradicted. His date and place of birth, his schooling and any work history have not been reported.
The first killing on the record took place on February 23, 1976. Daugherty robbed a food store in Flagler County, Florida, and Carmen Abrams, who was working there, was killed. Her husband was seriously wounded in the same robbery. The federal appeals court later described her as a woman in her sixties and the store as a convenience store.
The case did not come to court until 1980. On July 31, 1980, Daugherty pleaded guilty in Flagler County to her murder and was sentenced to life in prison, to run consecutively to his earlier sentences, according to the state's account. The Eleventh Circuit lists the case as a first-degree murder conviction. His lawyers later pointed out that the Flagler County prosecutors had not sought the death penalty for her killing.
On March 1, 1976, Lavonne Patricia Sailer was hitchhiking in Melbourne, in Brevard County, on a day of drizzling rain, as the state's filing describes it. Daugherty and his girlfriend stopped and picked her up. According to the Florida Supreme Court, he robbed her and then shot and killed her.
The Eleventh Circuit recorded what was taken from her: $15. Her killing was the one that led to his death sentence, yet almost nothing about her life has been reported beyond her full name and the town where she was waiting for a ride.
Later on the night of March 1, according to the state's 1988 account, Betty Campbell was stabbed to death in Volusia County during the robbery of her place of business. The Eleventh Circuit lists the conviction among the prior offenses the Brevard County judge relied on: the stabbing murder of a woman committed while Daugherty robbed her business.
On July 14, 1980, he pleaded guilty to her murder and was sentenced to life in prison. As in Flagler County, the Volusia County prosecutors did not seek a death sentence, a point his lawyers raised years later when they argued that the mitigating evidence in his background had influenced those decisions.
From Florida the pair drove north. On March 4, 1976, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a woman working in a music store was robbed at gunpoint and beaten, and was taken to hospital, according to the state's account. A second woman was beaten during a robbery at a cafe. Both survived. Daugherty was convicted in Pennsylvania on April 7, 1977, of aggravated assault, burglary, robbery and a firearms offense in the music store case and sentenced to eight to sixteen years and a $5,000 fine. On June 28, 1977, he was convicted of robbery, aggravated assault and a firearms offense in the second case, and on January 4, 1980, he was sentenced to ten to twenty years. The Eleventh Circuit lists these among his prior convictions as an armed robbery of a music store clerk in Altoona and additional Pennsylvania convictions for assault, burglary, robbery and firearms offenses.
On March 9, 1976, Elizabeth Shank was shot and killed during the robbery of a convenience store in Blair County, according to the state's account. The Eleventh Circuit describes the crime as the killing of a convenience store clerk.
Hers was the first murder case to go to trial. On December 8, 1976, a Blair County jury convicted Daugherty of first-degree murder in her death, as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court later recorded. That trial, and the coverage it drew, became the reason his next conviction was thrown out.
Two days after Elizabeth Shank's death, on March 11, 1976, George Karnes, 18, was working as the attendant at a gas station in Allegheny Township, near Duncansville, in Blair County. He was shot and killed during an armed robbery of the station. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court noted that there were no eyewitnesses.
Daugherty was tried for that killing in Blair County beginning on January 17, 1977. On January 31, 1977, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder and criminal conspiracy to commit murder, and it sentenced him to death. After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Moody, he was resentenced to life imprisonment on January 4, 1980.
The trip ended on March 12, 1976, in Dillwyn, Virginia. According to the state's account, Daugherty tried to rob a market there; the woman he confronted fainted, and he and his girlfriend were arrested within minutes. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recorded that the car they were traveling in had been identified as used in Blair County and contained the handgun that was used in the Karnes killing. In Virginia he was convicted of armed robbery and of using a firearm in the commission of a felony.
The Karnes conviction did not last. Daugherty appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which heard argument on October 3, 1980, and decided the case on March 13, 1981, in an opinion by Chief Justice O'Brien.
The court looked closely at what Blair County residents had been told before the Karnes trial. Between November 23, 1976, and January 7, 1977, Daugherty's name was mentioned about 1,300 times on Blair County television and radio and about 400 times in four local newspapers, including eleven front-page stories. The court found the reporting factual and objective, but it repeatedly told readers about his other cases, including that the couple had been convicted of, or were awaiting trial on, murder and armed robbery charges. All but one of the prospective jurors said they knew of the crime, of the earlier trial or of the charges still pending.
The court held that even objective publicity can prejudice a defendant when it reveals unrelated past crimes, is widespread, and continues close to trial, and that in such a case it is an abuse of discretion to refuse a change of venue. It reversed the judgment and sent the case back for a new trial without reaching his sixteen other claims of error. Justice Nix concurred in the result. No retrial was reported, and later Florida filings refer to the Karnes conviction as reversed.
The Florida cases came to court in 1980. Daugherty pleaded guilty to Betty Campbell's murder on July 14 and to Carmen Abrams's murder on July 31, receiving life sentences in each case. On November 18, 1980, in Brevard County, he pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder, robbery and kidnapping of Lavonne Patricia Sailer, and the case went to a jury only on the question of punishment. On November 20, 1980, the advisory jury unanimously recommended death.
At that sentencing hearing Daugherty testified himself, about the crimes, his remorse, his childhood and his religious conversion. A prison chaplain, Father Albert J. Anselmi, told the jury he believed the conversion was sincere. Family members and acquaintances also testified, among them an uncle. His lawyers argued that he had acted under the domination of his girlfriend, that he was young, and that he suffered from frequent headaches. They also put before the jury that he had tried to take his own life, and that under the sentences he was already serving he would not be eligible for parole for 107 and a half years.
On April 27, 1981, the judge imposed the death sentence for the murder, with consecutive life terms for the robbery and the kidnapping. The judge found two aggravating circumstances: that he had previously been convicted of other capital or violent felonies, and that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain. The judge found no mitigating circumstances. On the domination claim, the sentencing findings noted that while his girlfriend took part in many of the crimes, she was a small woman compared with him, and concluded that he was not under her extreme duress or domination. On the headaches, the judge found that he had not been suffering from one when he killed Lavonne Sailer. The judge did not find the statutory aggravating factor for especially atrocious or cruel killings.
The Florida Supreme Court decided his appeal on September 14, 1982, in a per curiam opinion joined by all seven justices. Daugherty did not challenge the voluntariness of his guilty plea. His arguments went to the sentence.
His main claim was that the judge should not have counted, as aggravating circumstances, convictions for crimes he committed after the Sailer killing. The court rejected it. The statute, it said, speaks of previous convictions, not previous crimes, and a conviction entered before sentencing counts even if the crime came later. The court also upheld the judge's refusal to find that he had no significant history of prior criminal activity, noting that one of his convictions was for a murder committed before Lavonne Sailer's, and it upheld the rejection of his age as a mitigating factor, repeating its rule that no particular age is automatically mitigating. The judge, it found, had considered his remorse, his suicide attempt, his conversion to Christianity and his unstable family life, and the weight given to them was a matter for the trial court. The conviction and death sentence were affirmed. The United States Supreme Court denied review on February 23, 1983.
Daugherty then turned to habeas corpus and post-conviction motions. A habeas petition filed in the Florida Supreme Court on November 8, 1983, was denied, and the United States Supreme Court again declined review in 1984.
On March 15, 1985, he filed a motion for post-conviction relief in the Brevard County circuit court. The central claim was that his trial lawyer had failed him by not presenting expert psychiatric or psychological evidence at sentencing. At an evidentiary hearing on May 29, 1985, a psychologist, Dr. Robert Weitz, testified about the influence of his girlfriend over him and about his deprived childhood, and a defense lawyer testified that a reasonably competent attorney would have arranged an evaluation. His lawyers argued that such evidence could have established four statutory mitigating factors: substantial domination by another person, extreme mental or emotional disturbance, impaired capacity, and emotional immaturity.
The trial lawyer explained his choice. He had consulted two psychologists and concluded that psychiatric testimony would not help his client, and he relied instead on lay witnesses, Daugherty himself and Father Anselmi, to show that he had changed. The circuit court denied the motion on July 3, 1985. On April 9, 1987, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed in an opinion by Justice Barkett. Three of his four claims, it held, had been or should have been raised on direct appeal. On the fourth, it agreed that he had not shown that his lawyer's performance was deficient. Rehearing was denied on May 22, 1987, and the United States Supreme Court denied review on October 9, 1987.
A death warrant was signed on August 24, 1987, with the execution set for 7 a.m. on October 15, 1987. The Florida Supreme Court denied a stay on September 21, 1987. On October 9 he filed a federal habeas petition in the Middle District of Florida, and on October 10 Judge George Kendall Sharp denied it, finding that he had not made a colorable showing of the denial of a federal constitutional right.
On October 13, 1987, two days before the scheduled execution, a panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals granted a certificate of probable cause and an indefinite stay. Chief Judge Roney and Judge Hatchett found that the petition raised constitutional issues debatable among reasonable jurists and that there was not enough time to decide them before the warrant expired; they ordered the appeal expedited. Judge Hill dissented, writing that the severity of the penalty did not by itself justify a certificate. The appeal went forward under that stay.
The Eleventh Circuit decided the appeal on February 12, 1988. Its per curiam opinion set out the record of the 1976 crimes and the seven prior convictions the sentencing judge had relied on, from the Flagler County murder to the Virginia armed robbery.
The court rejected each of his four claims. On his lawyer's failure to object to the jury instruction on the especially atrocious or cruel aggravating factor, it assumed the instruction was flawed but found no reasonable probability that the jury would have recommended a different sentence. On the psychiatric evidence, it held that the decision not to call an expert was a reasonable strategic choice, because the state could have answered such testimony with Daugherty's own earlier statements suggesting that he had not acted under his girlfriend's domination; the opinion also noted his lawyer's concession that favorable psychiatric testimony had been available. It found that the judge had considered the nonstatutory mitigating evidence even though the sentencing order did not list it, and it held his claim about prosecutorial discretion barred because it had not been raised on direct appeal. Rehearing was denied on April 14, 1988, and the United States Supreme Court denied review on October 3, 1988.
On October 7, 1988, Governor Bob Martinez signed a second death warrant. The execution was set for 7 a.m. on Friday, November 4, 1988, under a warrant that ran until noon on November 10.
His lawyers filed a second post-conviction motion on October 24, 1988. It raised five claims based on recent Supreme Court decisions: that the jury instruction on the especially atrocious or cruel aggravating factor was unconstitutional; that statements to the jury had diminished its sense of responsibility for the sentence; that the death sentence rested in part on the reversed Karnes conviction; that the judge had failed to consider nonstatutory mitigation; and that the prosecutor's closing remarks about the victim's family were improper. The emergency motion described the evidence of his remorse, his religious conversion and the relationship he had kept with his children, and called the chaplain a most unlikely source of false testimony. Judge J. William Woodson of the Brevard County circuit court denied the motion on October 27, 1988.
The Florida Supreme Court ruled on November 1, 1988. The claim about that instruction failed because the judge had never found that aggravating factor. The claim about the jury's sense of responsibility failed under the court's earlier rulings. On the Karnes conviction, the court found the cited Supreme Court case inapposite because the judge had also relied on several other violent felonies, including three other murders. The judge had considered the mitigating evidence, and the claim about the prosecutor's closing was barred because no objection had been made at trial. The court affirmed the denial of relief and refused a stay, and all seven justices concurred.
On November 7, 1988, the United States Supreme Court denied his last applications for a stay of execution, which had been presented to Justice Kennedy and referred to the full Court. Justice Brennan dissented, joined by Justice Marshall, and joined in part by Justice Blackmun, who agreed that the case should be held for a pending case, Adams v. Dugger, that raised similar questions about the jury being told its verdict was advisory. Justice Stevens also said he would have granted the stay.
His girlfriend, B.H., traveled with him from Michigan, was with him when Lavonne Sailer was picked up, and was arrested with him in Virginia. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court called her his accomplice and later co-defendant, and the Florida sentencing judge described her as a participant in many of the crimes. The outcome of the charges against her has not been reported.
Her place in his case was argued over for more than a decade. At sentencing he claimed that she had influenced him; the judge rejected the claim. In 1985 a psychologist testified that she had dominated him, and his lawyers argued that this testimony would have changed the sentence. The federal appeals court pointed instead to his own earlier statements that suggested the opposite.
The details of the Pennsylvania crimes differ between the records. The Eleventh Circuit's list of prior convictions describes the shooting of a young gas station attendant in terms that do not match the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's account of George Karnes's death.
The spellings of two victims' names vary. The court records spell them Elizabeth Shank and George Karnes. The subject's own first name appears as Jeffrey in the 1982 Florida Supreme Court opinion and as Jeffery in the federal opinions and the 1988 Florida filings.
The record of his killings rests on four murder convictions and the reversed Karnes conviction. No court finding about any other killing was reported.
January 1976: Daugherty, his girlfriend and his uncle leave Michigan for Florida.
February 23, 1976: Carmen Abrams is killed and her husband wounded in a store robbery in Flagler County, Florida.
March 1, 1976: Lavonne Patricia Sailer is picked up while hitchhiking in Melbourne, robbed of $15 and shot dead in Brevard County. Later that night Betty Campbell is stabbed to death during a robbery in Volusia County.
March 4, 1976: two women are robbed and beaten in Altoona, Pennsylvania; both survive.
March 9, 1976: Elizabeth Shank is shot and killed in a store robbery in Blair County, Pennsylvania.
March 11, 1976: George Karnes, 18, is shot and killed at a gas station near Duncansville, Blair County.
March 12, 1976: Daugherty and his girlfriend are arrested after an attempted robbery in Dillwyn, Virginia.
December 8, 1976: a Blair County jury convicts him of the first-degree murder of Elizabeth Shank.
January 31, 1977: a second Blair County jury convicts him of the first-degree murder of George Karnes and sentences him to death.
April 7 and June 28, 1977: convicted in the two Altoona robberies.
January 4, 1980: resentenced to life in the Karnes case after Commonwealth v. Moody.
July 14, 1980: pleads guilty to Betty Campbell's murder; life sentence.
July 31, 1980: pleads guilty to Carmen Abrams's murder; life sentence.
November 18, 1980: pleads guilty to the first-degree murder, robbery and kidnapping of Lavonne Patricia Sailer.
November 20, 1980: the jury unanimously recommends death.
March 13, 1981: the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reverses the Karnes conviction because of pretrial publicity.
April 27, 1981: sentenced to death for the Sailer murder.
September 14, 1982: the Florida Supreme Court affirms the death sentence.
February 23, 1983: the United States Supreme Court denies review.
March 15, 1985: first post-conviction motion filed; denied July 3, 1985.
April 9, 1987: the Florida Supreme Court affirms the denial.
August 24, 1987: first death warrant signed, for October 15, 1987.
October 13, 1987: the Eleventh Circuit grants an indefinite stay.
February 12, 1988: the Eleventh Circuit affirms the denial of federal habeas relief.
October 7, 1988: Governor Bob Martinez signs a second death warrant.
November 1, 1988: the Florida Supreme Court denies relief and a stay.
November 7, 1988: the United States Supreme Court denies his last applications for a stay.