On 01/02/86, Grossman filed a direct appeal with the Florida Supreme Court, raising eighteen issues, yet the FSC concentrated on those issues that directly related to potential errors in the trial process itself.  On 02/18/88, the FSC affirmed the conviction and death sentence imposed on Grossman.

Grossman filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on 07/25/88 that was denied on 03/06/89.

On 03/08/90, the Governor signed a death warrant for Grossman, but the FSC granted a stay of execution on 04/06/90.

Grossman filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus on 03/23/90, citing ineffective assistance of counsel, Caldwell error, and court decisions in opposition to the rulings of the FSC.  The FSC denied the Petition on 12/18/97.

Grossman filed a 3.850 Motion with the Circuit Court on 08/13/90 that was denied on 10/05/95.

Grossman filed a 3.850 Motion Appeal on 01/04/96, citing ineffective assistance of counsel; Brady violations, by the State withholding evidence; witness error; conflict of interest; faulty instruction on aggravating circumstances (HAC);  prosecutorial misconduct; defendant not present at all stages of trial; and improper weighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances.  The FSC affirmed the denial of the 3.850 Motion on 12/18/97.

Grossman filed a federal Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the U.S. District Court on 09/18/98.  On 07/22/02, the USDC administratively closed the case pending a decision in the FSC Bottoson/King cases. 

The case was reopened on 01/23/03.  On 08/12/03, the USDC administratively closed the case pending the filing of a supplemental brief.  On 08/25/04, an Amended Petition was filed.  On 01/31/05, the USDC denied the Petition.

Grossman filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus with the Florida Supreme Court on 08/14/03, citing ineffective assistance of counsel claims.  The FSC denied the Petition on 05/07/04.

Grossman filed a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus Appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals, 11^th Circuit, on 02/25/05 that is pending. 

Grossman filed a 3.851 Motion with the Circuit Court on 05/16/05 that was denied on 08/02/05.

Grossman filed a 3.851 Motion Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on 09/12/05 that is pending.

Floridacapitalcases.state.fl.us

Martin Grossman executed Peggy Park

February 16, 2010

Starke, Florida--The state of Florida executed killer Martin Grossman Tuesday evening at 6:17 pm. Grossman killed Wildlife Officer Peggy Park in 1984 in North Pinellas County.

Witnesses were led into the death chamber at 5:45 where a curtain was pulled down over the glass wall. At precisely 6 pm, the curtain rose, the team warden was on the phone with the Governor's office and he asked Grossman if he had any last words.

Grossman said, "I would like to extend my heartfelt remorse to the victim's family. I fully regret everything that occurred that night, for everything that was done, whether I remember everything or not. I accept responsibility." Grossman then said a prayer, "Shema Yisrael " and the execution began at 6:02. As the chemicals went into his body, Grossman closed his eyes and looked like he was going to sleep. At 6:07, the team warden called out Grossman's name , shook his body and brushed against his eyelashes to make sure he was unconscious, then the final chemical was administered to stop his heart.

At 6:16, the warden looked to the attending Doctor who was behind a wall. The doctor came out, used a stethoscope and at 6:17 the killer was pronounced dead.

During the rather antiseptic execution, Park's mother stared at her daughter's killer who was just 10 feet away. Afterwards, Margaret Park said she was thinking of the children of Haiti who were buried under concrete and died a horrible, scary death. Park says she thinks Grossman had it easy.

Park's sister Betsy says 25 years is an excruciating long time to have to wait and have the way her sister died brought up over and over. Betsy Park was sad her father didn't live to see the day the killer died. Park says she was upset with some opponents of the execution including the Pope for stepping in and some Jewish groups which she said went too far. According to Park the family was harassed over the past week and she thinks it is reprehensible. However Park says she is glad that Grossman took responsibility, but says it was long overdue.

Having covered some of the Peggy Park murder, and now being a witness at the execution of her killer, it seems as if Park's death was more traumatizing. She was beaten over the head more than 20 times with her flashlight and then shot in the head with her service revolver. And while the execution brings some closure, it will never end for the Park family.

Margaret Park says you don't forget, but you go on. And they will go on knowing the man who killed their daughter has finally been served justice, even if it took a quarter of a century for that to happen.

Grossman executed; last words are of 'heartfelt remorse'

February 16, 2010

Martin Grossman was declared dead at 6:17 p.m. at the Florida state prison in Starke, 15 minutes after the start of his execution by lethal injection.

In a final statement, Grossman expressed remorse to the family of Peggy Park, the Florida wildlife officer he beat and shot to death more than 25 years ago. "I would like to extend my heartfelt remorse to the victim's family," Grossman said. "I fully regret everything that happened that night, everything that was done, whether I remember everything or not. I accept responsibility." "I would like to say a prayer," the 45-year-old man added, then, lying on a gurney, hands strapped to arm boards and with needles in both arms, he began reciting a Jewish prayer called the Schma. It is the most sacred prayer in Judaism and the first prayer that Jewish children learn. Among its verses: "The Lord is our God, God is one."

Park's brother, sister and mother were among the 20 witnesses to the execution. They were seated directly in front of Grossman, who was visible through a window. The Vatican, Jewish leaders as far away as Israel, and thousands of petitioners called for a stop to the execution on several grounds, including questions about whether the slaying was premeditated, Grossman's diminished IQ and his remorse for the crime. Grossman's religious adviser, Rabbi Menachem Katz, was with him in his cell throughout the day.

Grossman took a shower and dressed at 4 p.m. He ordered no special last meal, just food from the prison cantina â?? a fried chicken sandwich, fruit punch, and banana cookies, said Gretl Plessinger, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections. "He is calm, compliant and resolved to the fact his execution is going to happen," Plessinger said before he was walked to the death chamber.

Grossman's final visit was 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. today with his aunt, Rosal Melton, and two female friends, Sharon Lion and Francine Whitehouse. The first two hours, a visitors window separated them and the last hour was a contact visit. Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused today to block Grossman's execution.

He was sentenced to death for murdering Park on Dec. 13, 1984, as she patrolled a wooded area of Pinellas County now known as the Brooker Creek Preserve. She came across Grossman, then a 19-year-old high school dropout, and a 17-year-old accomplice. They had a stolen gun. Grossman had already been to prison for grand theft and breaking-and-entering. He didn't want to go back. They beat Park with a flashlight and shot her with her service revolver.

Last-minute efforts to spare Grossman's life extended to the Vatican, which sent a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist saying "the prisoner has repented and is now a changed person." The letter was sent in response to a request from Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen, chief Rabbi of Haifa, Israel.

Grossman is the 69th person executed in Florida since the death penalty was reinstated in 1979, and the 25th by lethal injection. He was the fifth inmate executed under Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who has been in office for three years.

Crist signed Grossman's death warrant Jan. 12. Since that time, his office has received about 49,000 letters, telephone calls or e-mails, according to a spokesman.

US Jews rush to stay execution

February 16, 2010

NEW YORK – A coalition of Orthodox Jewish groups is appealing for clemency on behalf of a Jewish inmate on Florida’s death row who is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday night.

Martin Grossman was convicted of first-degree murder for killing a Florida wildlife officer in 1984, when the officer found Grossman, then 19, and a 17-year-old friend shooting a stolen handgun inside a nature preserve. But, arguing that Grossman’s crime was not premeditated, and committed while Grossman was mentally impaired and on drugs, the Jewish groups are asking for a 60-day reprieve, in order to prepare another appeal and explore legal options. “He has conducted himself as a model prisoner since his incarceration some 25 years ago and has shown profound remorse and regret for his actions,” the groups, including the National Council of Young Israel, Agudath Israel of America and the Orthodox Union, said in a statement. Grossman, they argued, should “be permitted to serve his debt to society by serving the rest of his life in prison.”

Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger, citing “new evidence,” also wrote to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, according to a letter publicized by Yeshiva World News. “I am convinced that there is sufficient cause to at least delay this execution until all evidence and legal arguments are presented,” he wrote.

With Grossman sitting on death row for decades, the groups sprung into action on January 12, when Crist signed Grossman’s death warrant. Courts have rejected multiple appeals based on claims including ineffective assistance of counsel and diminished mental capacity. The Florida Supreme Court rejected Grossman’s latest appeal last week.

Grossman was convicted of first-degree murder for killing Margaret “Peggy” Park, a Florida wildlife officer, who found him and a teenaged accomplice shooting a stolen gun in a Florida nature preserve on December 13, 1984. Grossman, who had recently been released from prison after serving time for burglary, begged Park not to turn him in. When she refused, he hit her 20 to 30 times and then shot her in the head with her service gun.

For the victim’s family, who seek closure on the painful memory, the execution is long overdue. “I don’t take any pleasure in an execution, but it’s time,” Margaret Park, the victim’s 79-year-old mother, told The Associated Press. “He had very good representation all the way through. I think he’s been treated very fairly by the state of Florida,” she said. “It’s long overdue.”

Park, who planned to travel with her daughter and son to Florida from Ohio to witness the execution, said every time there is a new development in the case, it feels like a “wave coming up and knocking you back down, and you go over all the emotions again. We just need to have an end to this coming back and hitting us again.”

The Jewish groups argue, however, that no matter how terrible Grossman’s crime, it does not warrant the death penalty. So far, more than 24,000 people have signed an online petition on behalf of Grossman, and a Web site, www.savemartingrossman.com, includes medical reports outlining his low IQ and unspecified mental problems, as well as letters from family members, death penalty opponents and even Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, who wrote, “These days, death is winning too many battles and life imprisonment is a harsh enough punishment.”

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who signed onto the effort on behalf of Grossman, wrote in the Jewish groups’ public statement: “Even those who strongly support capital punishment would limit it to recidivists or people who commit the most heinous of crimes. Martin Grossman fits neither of those categories.” Dershowitz added that Grossman’s crime was unplanned, impulsive and the “product of a serious mental illness, that can now be proven by medical technology that was unavailable at the time of his sentencing. All that he is seeking now is a 60-day postponement of his execution, so that his supporters can martial the evidence and present his case for clemency,” Dershowitz wrote. “No one should be rushed to execution while doubts remain unresolved.”

An animal lover, Peggy Park earned a degree in natural resources and wildlife management from Ohio State in 1981, and in 1982 took a job as a Florida wildlife officer patrolling the Brooker Creek nature preserve near Tampa. Grossman and an accomplice, Thayne Taylor, 17, were arrested two weeks after Park was killed and Taylor served nearly three years in prison. Grossman was convicted in October 1985. The jury recommended the death penalty by a vote of 12 to 0.

Rabbi Menachem Katz of the Aleph Institute, who has counseled Grossman for 15 years, said the inmate is “trying to be as strong as possible. He takes full responsibility for his behavior and actions. He has unbelievable amounts of remorse and he believes in God and hopes for life. He’s praying for a miracle.” Katz said the Aleph Institute, an organization that works with incarcerated Jews in American prisons, typically does not get involved in legal aspects of criminal cases. “Definitely not as far as this,” he said. “But after the governor signed the death warrant, we looked closer at the case, at the details, to save the life of someone who never should have been given the death penalty,” he said.

Citing Grossman’s history of drug use, he said there was no premeditation in this case. “If this execution goes through, it’s not on the merits of the case.” He said the fact that Grossman has become more religious has nothing to do with the Aleph Institute’s involvement in his case. “It’s because this is a matter of life and death,” Katz said. “The facts of the case are so clear,” he said, reiterating his belief that the crime does not warrant death. “If it was a brutal rape and murder crime, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

But the victim’s younger sister, Betsy, told the St. Petersburg Times that Grossman’s execution is not about vengeance. “It’s to see it finished,” she said. “He had a chance to make choices. And he made the wrong ones.”

Martin Edward Grossman