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Jacob John
DOUGAN Jr.
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Hate
crime - A note, impaled in the victim's stomach with a knife, called
for revolution by oppressed blacks and vowed to kill other whites
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder:
June 17, 1974
Date of birth: July 11, 1947
Victim profile: Steve Orlando,
18
Method of murder:
Shooting
(.22 caliber pistol)
Location: Duval County, Florida, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on April 10, 1975. Resentenced to
death on October 25, 1979, and December 4, 1987
Fourth Judicial Circuit, Duval
County Case # 74-4139 CF
Sentencing Judge: The Honorable
R. Hudson Olliff
Trial Attorney: Ernest D.
Jackson, Sr. & Dietra Micks – Private
Attorneys, Direct Appeal:
Direct
Appeal (1977): Ernest D. Jackson, Sr.
Direct
Appeal (1981) (after re-sentencing): Joseph M. Nursey
Direct Appeal (1985) (after order from FSC): Joseph
M. Nursey
Direct
Appeal (1992) (after re-sentencing): James E. Ferguson II
Attorney, Collateral Appeals:
Mark Olive – Private
Date of Offense:
06/17/74
Date of Sentence:
04/10/75
Date of Resentence: 10/25/79
and 12/04/87
Circumstances of Offense:
On
the evening of 06/17/74, in Jacksonville, FL., Dougan, along with four
accomplices, armed with a .22 caliber pistol and a knife, set out to
kill a white person, whom they termed “devils.”
While driving to Jacksonville Beach, the men picked up a hitchhiker
named Stephen Orlando and drove him to an isolated trash dump. After
arriving, the men ordered Orlando out of the car, threw him to the
ground, and one of the accomplices began stabbing him with the knife.
Dougan put his foot on the head of Orlando and fired two shots to his
head, one striking Orlando in the cheek and the other in the ear –
killing him instantly.
A
note was attached to the body of Orlando, which read as follows:
“Warning to the oppressive state. No longer will your atrocities and
brutalizing of black people be unpunished. The black man is no longer
asleep. The revolution has begun and the oppressed will be victorious.
The revolution will end when we are free. The Black Revolutionary Army.
All power to the people."
In
addition to the note, the offenders recorded a number of audio tapes
concerning the murder and sent them to the victim’s mother, as well as
local media outlets.
Trial Summary:
09/26/74
- Indicted for First-Degree Murder.
03/05/75 -
Jury returned guilty verdict and recommended death penalty by a 10-2.
04/10/75 -
Sentenced to death.
10/25/79 -
Resentenced to death as a result of a successful Gardner appeal.
12/04/87 -
Resentenced to death. The jury recommended a death sentence by a vote of 9-3. Resentenced as a
result of a successful Habeas appeal.
Case Information:
Dougan filed a Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on 04/23/75,
claiming the trial court erred in deciding the venue of the trial and
that he was denied a fair and impartial trial because the prosecutor
failed to reveal complete details of a plea bargain agreement with a
witness (an accomplice) in exchange for his testimony.
The Florida
Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentence of death on 03/17/77.
Dougan filed a Petition
for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on 08/29/77 and was
denied this Petition on 10/10/78.
Subsequent to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Gardner v. Florida, the
Florida Supreme Court took the petition for Gardner Relief to ensure
that the sentencing procedure in this case satisfied the Due Process
clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The Gardner petition was based on the
fact that the defense did not have sufficient opportunity to rebut
information contained in the presentence investigation report, which was
used as evidence of aggravating factors in the sentencing phase of the
trial. On 09/07/78, the petition was granted, with the sentence vacated
and the proceeding remanded to the trial court for resentencing.
Dougan was resentenced to death on 10/25/79.
Dougan filed his second Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on
11/21/79. Dougan argued that he was prejudiced by the trial court’s
early consideration of a presentence investigation report, which defense
counsel had no opportunity to rebut. On 04/09/81, the Florida Supreme
Court again affirmed the sentence of death.
Dougan filed another Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the United
States Supreme Court on 07/06/81, and this Petition was denied on
10/05/81.
Dougan filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the Florida
Supreme Court on 03/01/82, citing ineffective assistance of counsel due
to conflict of interest and failure to raise meritorious legal claims.
The court ruled that conflict of interest did exist, since the same
counsel represented both Dougan and another conspirator in the same
direct appeal to the FSC. On 04/05/84, the court granted the Petition
and ordered another Direct Appeal be filed with separate counsel.
Dougan’s third Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court was filed on
04/05/84, citing the following issues: improper search and seizure,
victim’s stepfather identifying the victim at trial, errors in jury
instruction regarding felony murder, exclusion of relevant defense
evidence at trial, and exclusion of death-scrupled prospective jurors.
The court found that during the sentencing phase of the trial, the state
did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt all aspects of all the
aggravating circumstances. The court again vacated Dougan’s death
sentence and remanded it for a new sentencing hearing with a new jury.
Dougan again filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S.
Supreme Court on 07/11/85 and was denied this Petition on 03/31/86.
Dougan was resentenced to death on 12/04/87. The jury recommended
a death sentence by a vote of 9-3.
Dougan filed a fourth Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on
01/04/88, citing the following issues: race-biased use of peremptory
challenges during jury selection, inability of the jury to recommend
life imprisonment regardless of its findings as to aggravating and
mitigating circumstances, errors in instructing the jury as to
mitigating circumstances, and disproportionality of the death sentence.
On 04/01/92, the FSC affirmed the death sentence for Dougan.
Dougan filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme
Court on 08/21/92, and this Petition was denied on 10/19/92.
Dougan filed a second Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the
Florida Supreme Court on 03/23/94, arguing that the jury was given
inadequate instruction and weighed an invalid aggravating factor.
The court found this error to be harmless and denied the Petition on
09/08/94.
Dougan filed a 3.850 Motion in the circuit court on 10/17/94 that was
amended on 09/06/02 and is pending.
Floridacapitalcases.state.fl.us
Torture in Florida
A Killing On Father's Day
By Andrew H. Malcolm - The New York Times
Monday, July 23,
1990
It was the evening of June 16, 1974, Father's Day.
But 18-year-old Steve Orlando was not celebrating. His parents were
divorced, and he lived with his mother in Jacksonville, Fla.
Mr. Orlando had played pool with friends at a Howard
Johnson motel. Now, he was going to walk five blocks to fetch his
stalled car.
The next morning, Mr. Orlando was found lying in the
middle of the sandy road that leads to a dump. He had been pummeled and
then tortured with a knife. He had been shot in the left cheek. And then
in the left ear. A note, impaled in his stomach with the knife, called
for revolution by oppressed blacks and vowed to kill other whites.
Indeed, a week after Mr. Orlando's death, another white teen-age boy was
killed in the Jacksonville area under similar circumstances.
On tape recordings sent to the victims' families and
TV stations, a man described in gruesome detail the torture of Mr.
Orlando. But despite all the fear in the town, the news media attention
and political pressures, the investigation reached a dead end in two
months. Tommy Reeves, a veteran homicide sergeant, was placed in charge
in August.
In the cardboard box that contained files and
literature initially collected by many detectives was a handwritten
letter of resignation from some anti-poverty program. It looked familiar.
Sergeant Reeves reached for the note
found by the Orlando body. The writing was the same. The letter was
signed by Jacob Dougan, a Vietnam veteran and an organizer for black
causes, with no criminal record.
Fingerprint on a Tape Recording
The detective sent the letters to the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, which got Mr. Dougan's fingerprints from the Air Force.
The agency said both letters were Mr. Dougan's. It also said there was a
Dougan fingerprint on one of the tape recordings. In late September
Sergeant Reeves and other officers arrested the 28-year-old Mr. Dougan.
Ernest Jackson, a respected civil rights lawyer,
agreed to be defense counsel. It was a tough assignment.
In return for reduced charges, William Hearn, who had
driven the car used in the kidnapping of Mr. Orlando, made a full
statement naming Mr. Dougan as the leader of a plot to seize a ''white
devil'' and execute him to promote black revolution.
Duval County, which includes Jacksonville, has about
200 homicide prosecutions a year. The seven-member homicide panel,
headed by the prosecutor, Ed Austin, votes to seek the death penalty in
1 percent to 5 percent of murders. The Orlando killing was one.
Mr. Dougan's devoted adoptive parents and church
upbringing and even his Eagle Scout badge erased any doubt in Mr.
Austin's mind that the young man knew right from wrong. There was little
room for the defense to maneuver, except to argue temporary insanity
caused by racial problems. Mr. Hearn's testimony persuaded the jury to
find Mr. Dougan guilty.
After the penalty hearing, the jury recommended death,
10 to 2. On April 10, 1975, a month later, Judge R. Hudson Olliff
ordered that Mr. Dougan be electrocuted. In his decades at the Duval
County courthouse, the 64-year-old Judge Olliff has issued nine death
sentences, but to seven men. With appeals over the years, Mr. Dougan has
been in Courtroom 8 three times for the same crime.
There have been 34 legal steps in the decorous
struggle over whether Jacob Dougan will someday sit in Florida's worn
wooden electric chair, the seven leather straps buckled around his chest
and limbs, and have 2,000 volts pass through his body.
Both sides have been waiting nearly 17 months for the
latest opinion from the Florida Supreme Court. All this has taken more
than 15 years, and many more years lie ahead; the Dougan case has not
gone the Federal appeals court route.
