Leo Boatman, of Pinellas County, Florida, has been convicted of four deaths in three separate incidents spread over thirteen years. In January 2006 he killed Amber Peck and John Parker, two adults of 26, in Marion County. He pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, avoided the death penalty and received two life sentences. While serving those sentences he was convicted of attempted second-degree murder of an inmate in Dixie County, and of third-degree murder in the death of Ricky Morris in Charlotte County in 2010. On July 5, 2019, William L. Chapman died in Bradford County, and in August 2022 a jury convicted Boatman of first-degree premeditated murder. He waived a jury for the remainder of the penalty phase, and on November 9, 2022 the court sentenced him to death. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence on October 17, 2024.
Boatman is from Pinellas County. The court that sentenced him in 2022 heard from more than a dozen defense witnesses, among them a retired judge, a mitigation specialist and several mental health experts, on his upbringing and his neurological and psychological condition. The trial court accepted twelve non-statutory mitigating circumstances, including adverse childhood experiences, and gave each little to some weight. It found his age of 32 at the time of the 2019 offense to be established but gave it no weight, and it rejected four statutory mental-health mitigators.
Amber Peck and John Parker were both 26. They were killed in Marion County, Florida, in January 2006.
Boatman avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to murder in both deaths, and he received two life sentences.
The life sentences did not end Boatman's record of violence. In 2009, in Dixie County, he was convicted of "attempted second-degree murder" of another inmate, who survived, and received a further seven years.
In 2010, Ricky Morris, an inmate in Charlotte County, died, and Boatman was convicted of "third-degree murder" in his death. He received a 15-year sentence for that conviction. With the 2006 pair, Morris was the third person whose death led to a murder conviction against Boatman, and Chapman was the fourth.
William L. Chapman was 32 and was serving a sentence in the Florida correctional system when he died on July 5, 2019, in Bradford County. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Department of Corrections investigated.
Another inmate, William Wells, was charged with murder in Chapman's death in July 2019. A Bradford County grand jury indicted Wells on a first-degree murder charge on November 4, 2019. Boatman was prosecuted in the same Bradford County court on a charge of first-degree murder and on a further offense, a conviction he did not appeal.
Wells's case was resolved first. He pleaded guilty, and on May 25, 2021 Circuit Judge Mark Moseley sentenced him to death for the killing of Chapman. The Florida Supreme Court upheld his conviction and death sentence on April 13, 2023, in an opinion by Justice Grosshans, with Justice Labarga concurring in the result and Justice Francis not participating.
Boatman's case went to trial in Bradford County Circuit Court before Judge James Matthew Colaw. Assistant State Attorneys Luis Bustamante and Bruce Helling prosecuted.
Before trial, Boatman moved to be found incompetent to proceed, relying on a psychiatrist's report that diagnosed an adjustment disorder. At a hearing the psychiatrist conceded that she had no concern about his ability to take part in a trial, apart from a possible guilty plea. The trial court denied the motion, and the Florida Supreme Court later held that this was not an abuse of discretion.
The jury rejected the defense argument that the killing was something less than premeditated murder. In August 2022 it convicted Boatman of "first-degree premeditated murder". He was also convicted of a further offense, which he did not appeal.
The penalty phase began before a jury. A few days into it, Boatman waived the jury for the remainder, and the court accepted the waiver after lengthy colloquies. The State called four witnesses, including an agent of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and three witnesses on Boatman's earlier violent crimes. The defense called more than a dozen. At a later hearing neither side offered further evidence.
On November 9, 2022, Judge Colaw sentenced Boatman to death. He found four aggravating circumstances:
The offense was committed by a person previously convicted of a felony and under sentence of imprisonment, which he gave very great weight. Boatman had previously been convicted of another capital felony or a violent felony, also given very great weight. The killing met the statutory aggravator for offenses that are atrocious or cruel, given very great weight. And it was cold, calculated and premeditated, given great weight.
Boatman's death sentence went automatically to the Florida Supreme Court, and he raised fifteen issues. They covered his competency and a motion to disqualify the judge, the exclusion of certain photographs and video, jury selection, evidentiary and hearsay rulings in both phases, the sufficiency of the evidence of premeditation, a jury instruction, the validity of his waiver of the penalty-phase jury, challenges to the state's death penalty scheme, the aggravating circumstances, mental illness as a bar to a death sentence, and proportionality.
In a per curiam opinion on October 17, 2024, the court rejected every claim. It found the jury waiver knowing, intelligent and voluntary and the evidence of premeditation sufficient. Chief Justice Muñiz and Justices Canady, Couriel, Grosshans, Francis and Sasso joined the opinion. Justice Labarga concurred in the result only, because he continued to disagree with the court's decision to stop reviewing death sentences for proportionality against other cases. The court stated: "For the reasons stated above, we affirm Boatman's conviction and death sentence." The opinion was not final until the time for rehearing had run.
When Boatman killed Peck and Parker in 2006 he faced a possible death sentence, which was taken off the table when he pleaded guilty. That agreement left him serving life terms, and the 2019 case therefore turned on the aggravating circumstance that applies to a person who commits a capital felony while under sentence of imprisonment, and on the one for a prior capital or violent felony. Both were found, and both carried very great weight.
Florida law lets a defendant waive a jury at the penalty phase. The Florida Supreme Court reviewed the waiver in Boatman's case and found it valid. The court also noted that it has no authority to conduct comparative proportionality review of a death sentence unless a statute provides for it, relying on its 2020 decision in Lawrence v. State, 308 So. 3d 544; Justice Labarga adhered to his dissent in that case. All death sentences in Florida are reviewed on direct appeal by the Florida Supreme Court.
The 2006 deaths ended in a guilty plea, so no jury heard evidence about them.
Boatman contested the charge of premeditated murder. His competency to stand trial was contested before the trial and decided against him, and the Florida Supreme Court found no abuse of discretion in that ruling. Whether any further review of his conviction or sentence is pending has not been made public.
January 2006: Amber Peck and John Parker are killed in Marion County.
After January 2006: Boatman pleads guilty to two counts of murder and receives two life sentences.
2009: Convicted of attempted second-degree murder of an inmate in Dixie County; seven further years.
2010: Ricky Morris dies in Charlotte County; Boatman is convicted of third-degree murder and receives 15 years.
July 5, 2019: William L. Chapman dies in Bradford County.
July 2019: William Wells is charged.
November 4, 2019: A Bradford County grand jury indicts Wells.
May 25, 2021: Wells is sentenced to death by Judge Mark Moseley.
August 2022: A jury convicts Boatman of first-degree premeditated murder.
November 9, 2022: Judge James Matthew Colaw sentences Boatman to death.
April 13, 2023: The Florida Supreme Court upholds Wells's conviction and death sentence.
October 17, 2024: The Florida Supreme Court affirms Boatman's conviction and death sentence.