Two Reprieves Lost, Tate Gets 30 Years

Tears ran down Lionel Tate’s chubby cheeks when the 14-year-old left a Broward County courtroom in handcuffs as the youngest American ever sentenced to life in prison.

Five years later, having squandered two chances at freedom, the lean-faced Tate calmly walked out of the same courtroom Thursday after being sentenced to 30 years in prison for violating his probation for the murder of first-grader Tiffany Eunick. The 19-year-old man briefly covered his face as his sentence was handed down, but there were no tears this time after listening to a judge’s strong words.

“In plain English, Lionel Tate, you’ve run out of chances,” said acting Circuit Judge Joel T. Lazarus.

Tate still could spend the rest of his life in prison after making a choice Thursday that baffled his attorney and prosecutors: Tate rejected a deal that ensured he would face no additional prison time on an armed robbery charge.

Tate insisted he wanted to fight charges he held up a Domino’s deliveryman at gunpoint for four pizzas. He could end up with a life prison term tacked to his 30-year sentence if he’s convicted. Tate has been in the media spotlight since his July 1999 arrest as a 12-year-old accused of beating to death his 6-year-old playmate inside his mother’s Pembroke Park home. A jury convicted him in 2001 of first-degree murder, which meant Lazarus had to give him a life sentence. The case sparked a fierce debate over whether juveniles should be tried as adults.

Tate got a second chance at freedom in 2004, when an appellate court overturned his conviction and he got 10 years’ probation with a plea deal for second-degree murder. He was back in jail nine months later for violating his probation after getting caught outside after curfew. Tate spent 52 days in jail before Lazarus released him again in November 2004, giving him an extra five years’ probation.

Seven months later, authorities arrested Tate in the May 2005 robbery, and he’s been behind bars since.

“Most do not even get a second chance, let alone a third chance,” Lazarus said. “The choices were there for you, and you chose wrong.”

Tate declined to speak Thursday before he was sentenced for violating his probation by possessing a gun and breaking a glass door at the Broward County Jail. He had faced a sentence of no less than 10 years and no more than 30 years under an agreement he reached with prosecutors on the probation violations.

His attorney, H. Dohn Williams, argued that Tate’s failure to stay out of prison could be attributed to his mother’s neglect. Kathleen Grossett-Tate, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, left guns in the home that were readily accessible.

“What I say to Ms. Tate is that today is the day you go home and you look in the mirror and you say to yourself, ‘How did I fail my son?’ ” Williams said.

Williams said Grossett-Tate visited her son in jail only once between May 2005 and December. Broward sheriff’s detention records pulled Thursday show no record of Grossett-Tate visiting her son during that time.

Before Williams spoke, Grossett-Tate gave an emotionless 30-second speech on her son’s behalf.

“This is very hard being back in the courtroom with my son,” Grossett-Tate said. “I just ask for mercy for my son. It’s been a long, long five years.”

Her attorney, Michael Hursey, said Grossett-Tate was disappointed by the 30-year sentence but remained hopeful for her son’s future.

He said Grossett-Tate was surprised by Williams’ remarks about her.

As a law enforcement officer, Grossett-Tate needed guns, Hursey said.

She had trusted her son’s judgment and thought she had physical safeguards in place preventing access to the weapons, the attorney said.

Grossett-Tate believes there is strong evidence that her son didn’t commit the robbery, but it was ultimately his decision to fight that case, Hursey said.

Williams said Tate’s mother and jail inmates have been giving Tate bad advice that is leading him astray.

Some people “are telling him he’s going to win his appeal on violating his probation, and he is going to win his robbery case, and he’s going to be out in a year as a free man,” Williams said.

Williams observed that Tate’s mother had been the one in 2001 who rejected a plea deal in the murder case that would have sent her son to a juvenile detention facility for three years.

Assistant State Atty. Chuck Morton did not make any sentencing suggestions to Lazarus. He said after the hearing that Tate’s decision not to plead guilty to the robbery and avoid more prison time was “extremely risky and unusual.”

Lazarus said that as a father, he had anguished over sentencing Tate five years ago.

“Maybe somewhere within this less than perfect system of criminal justice, a fourth chance will be afforded to you,” Lazarus said. “But until that day comes -- if it ever does come -- you must bear full responsibility for the consequences of all that has transpired.”

Tate’s robbery trial is to start Sept. 18.