Florida Teen Jailed in Slaying Is Freed

Lionel Tate walked side by side with his mother out of the Broward County Jail on Monday after a judge ordered the 16-year-old Florida boy, once sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder, freed on bond.

On Thursday, Tate is expected to enter a formal plea of guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a much reduced sentence of three years’ imprisonment, one year of house arrest and 10 years of probation.

His lawyers said Tate had already served three years since his first conviction, so he would not need to serve more time.

A Florida appeals court had tossed out the original guilty verdict against Tate, who at the age of 12 fatally beat a younger and smaller child, and prosecutors preparing for a retrial offered the plea bargain.

After a 10-minute bond hearing before state Circuit Judge Joel T. Lazarus, and about 4 1/2 hours while paperwork was processed by state officials in Tallahassee, Tate was released on his own recognizance. Under the judge’s order, the now gangly teenager, who grew much taller and thinner while in the state’s custody, was required to wear an ankle bracelet for electronic monitoring of his whereabouts. He will also undergo psychological testing.

It was a jubilant scene on the courthouse esplanade, where the newly released Tate, his mother Kathleen Grossett-Tate, lawyers, friends and supporters joined hands for a prayer of thanksgiving led by Bishop Thomas Masters, a South Florida clergyman. Masters has campaigned against the life terms and death sentences meted out by some U.S. courts to juvenile offenders.

“Father, we pray for the other children who are left behind,” Masters said.

“For now, Lionel wants to go home,” said defense attorney Richard Rosenbaum. “He wants to feel his pillow, and he wants to sleep in his own bed.”

Rosenbaum said he had advised Tate to remain silent until the plea-bargaining deal with prosecutors was certified as official by the judge on Thursday. “Until our dolphin swims to freedom, we can’t let him say a word,” he said.

In 1999, Tate beat a 6-year-old playmate to death. Prosecutors said the massive injuries suffered by Tiffany Eunick were the medical equivalent of being thrown out of second or third story window.

Tate said he accidentally killed the girl while imitating professional wrestling moves he had seen on television.

It was the refusal of Tate’s mother, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, to accept an earlier plea-bargaining offer that led to the first-degree murder charge against her son and, after a jury’s guilty verdict, the life sentence without parole mandated by Florida law.

However, in December a state appellate court threw out that verdict and ordered a retrial, saying the young defendant’s ability to understand and participate in the legal process hadn’t been properly verified.

Family acquaintances said Grossett-Tate had prepared her only child’s favorite dish, curried chicken, for dinner Monday, and that a welcome-home party was planned at their townhouse in Pembroke Park south of Fort Lauderdale.

“Just continue to pray for us because we’re going to need it,” Grossett-Tate told reporters before leaving for home with her son. “This is a new chapter in our lives.”

The two were reunited during the hearing, when Grossett-Tate came over to the defense table and put her arm around her son. For the first time since he was brought into the courtroom in handcuffs, which bailiffs removed for the proceedings, Tate smiled brightly.

Rosenbaum said the mother and son have presented their apologies in private to the family of Tiffany, the victim. But on Monday, the dead girl’s mother, Deweese Eunick-Paul, called on Tate to admit to murder. Asked what she wanted to hear him say, Eunick-Paul said, “I do take responsibility for my actions for murdering your daughter, and I’m sorry.”