tv Death Row Stories CNN July 13, 2014 7:00pm-8:01pm PDT
7:00 pm
involved at some point in some illegal activity with shane miller, i want you to think about one thing. he could turn that gun on you any second and blow you away. pick up the phone. get online. tell us where that guy is so he can get the justice he so badly deserves. on this episode of "death row stories," a millionaire is accused of brutal murders in a downtown miami hotel. >> the crime scene was a bloody, bloody mess. >> after a death sentence, one man fights to save his life. >> in federal court they say, my guy is innocent. they say, too bad, mate. that's got nothing to do with it. >> what he discovers would turn the case upside down. >> anybody would say, what? that's not allowed? >>there were questions that should have been asked.
7:01 pm
>> in this case there was more evidence covered up than any case i have seen in decades. >> there is a body in the water. >> he was butchered and murdered. >> many people proclaim their innocence. >> in this case, there are a number of things that stink. >> this man is remorseless. >> he needs to pay for it with his life. >> the electric chair. >> flashed in front of my eyes. another homicide was discovered the dupont plaza hotel in downtown miami. [ gunshots ] are [ sirens ] >> this was a very sensational
7:02 pm
crime. how many times do you have a double homicide in a downtown miami hotel? >> the crime scene was a bloody, bloody mess. >> the father was shot six times. he was crawling, trying to escape. the son was shot execution style. this was a pretty shocking case. >> the dead men were derrick moo young, father of four, and his youngest son duane who had just been accepted to law school. a few hours after the shootings a journalist named neville butler contacted police saying he had seen his boss, 47-year-old kris maharaj pull the trigger. >> our big break was when we received a telephone call that there was an individual named neville butler that wanted to speak to us. >> butler described the crimes in detail to burrmaster. >> kris came out with a gun in hand, a glove on.
7:03 pm
that's when i almost passed out. i asked kris, what on earth is this? he says, keep out of this. that's when he fired the first shot. at his leg. that's when kris must have let go of four or five bullets. >> the television that was there, the lamp, and everything had all been shot up. the screen of the television had been destroyed from a bullet. he turned his attention now to the son and said, come with me. he took him up the stairs and turned him around against the wall and next thing i heard was he shot the boy in the back of his head. >> kris maharaj was a wealthy importer are from england who started a newpaper business in miami. he was quickly charged with two counts of first-degree murder. the maximum sentence, the death
7:04 pm
penalty. >> it didn't look too good for kris. the lead detective john burrmaster said he denied ever being in room 1213 while his fingerprints were all over which was a lie. he denied having a gun. the ballistics expert said his was the gun used in the murder. he had invested in property and derrick moo young was supervising the property. according to kris, derrick had stolen $441,000, just embezzled it. so kris had a motive. he clearly hated the moo youngs. finally the icing on the cake was star witness neville butler. >> kris's case went to tile. in court, the defense presented no ally witnesses and kris never took the stand. ron patrillo was the defense investigator on the case. >> i knew when i heard all of
7:05 pm
this going on coming out of the jury room what the final outcome was going to be. >> the jury returned guilty verdicts in the less than four hours. >> when it went to the penalty phase, judge gave him the death sentence. >> during his ruling the judge declared the coldness and calculated manner in which the defendant executed his heinous plan cannot be overstated. kris would officially begin his time on death row. >> once they gave me the death sentence, i said, god knows i am innocent. they will not kill me. they cannot. >> kris is from england, a country that abolished the death penalty for murder in 1965. with one of their citizens on death row, the british government asked clive stafford smith to investigate the case.
7:06 pm
clive was a young lawyer who made a name for himself fighting death penalty cases on a pro bono basis. >> by the time i got there in 1994 he had been sentenced to death. he had gone up to the supreme court on appeal, to the u.s. supreme court. came back down. so my first thought was, oh, my goodness, how did i let myself into ? >> despite his reluctance, clive agreed to meet with the man he presumed was guilty. >> i never talk to people when i first meet them about did you do it. they don't trust you. kris was a rare person who insisted on giving me an a to z lecture about the fact that he didn't do it. i found that quite convincing. although the evidence against him was strong at the time. >> as a former cop, ron patrill o also had doubts about kris's innocence when he joined the case. >> initially i thought kris just killed these guys. but i'm looking to see where the
7:07 pm
evidence takes me. it didn't add up. the deeper i got into the investigation, it began to dawn on me that kris was innocent. >> ron was loyal to kris. he carried on after the case was over, even though he wasn't being paid or anything. >> ron and clive noticed discrepancies in the prosecution's story of the murders and set out to look for answers. >> i demanded to the see the files of the prosecutor and of the police. i start going through it and i'm sitting there with extraordinarily bad coffee in police headquarters going through a carefully tabbed file. i discovered that neville butler, the star witness, failed his polygraph test, note that is showed that the police knew that kris had lost his gun before the murders took place. this case is more evidence that was covered up than any case i have ever seen in decades.
7:08 pm
that it's given me time toabout reflect on some of life'seen biggest questions. like, if you could save hundreds on car insurance by making one simple call, why wouldn't you make that call? see, the only thing i can think of is that you can't get any... bars. ah, that's better. it's a beautiful view. i wonder if i can see mt. rushmore from here. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.
7:09 pm
if yand you're talking toevere rheuyour rheumatologistike me, about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain. this is humira helping me lay the groundwork. this is humira helping to protect my joints from further damage. doctors have been prescribing humira for ten years. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira is proven to help relieve pain and stop further joint damage in many adults. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer, have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b,
7:10 pm
7:11 pm
just a year before kris maharaj was put on death row for the murders of derrick and duane moo young in florida he was living a life of luxury in england. >> kris had come to england when he was young. worked incredibly hard and had become a millionaire. >> in england kris married and had four kids while working his way from a truck driver to a business magnate. >> i was in business, all sorts of stuff. i started small.
7:12 pm
i became the largest importer. >> he was a very flamboyant millionaire in london. he had a rolls royce. then he began to get into horse racing. >> i was able to purchase a hundred horses. i had 12 trainerers. >> kris had the largest stable of horses other than the queen. having emigrated from trinidad, he mingled with members of parliament, gaining entrance into an upper crust, lily white society rarely available to immigrants of color. >> when i got arrested for these murders, members of parliament said we knew maharaj. something is wrong. he's being framed. >> kris first met the men he was accused of killing when he began importing their fruit from jamaica. after years of doing business
7:13 pm
derrick asked kris to invest in houses in florida. >> my plan was when i reached 65 i would spend the summer in england and the winter in ft. lauderdale. i invested the money. >> narrator: according to kris, the moo youngs took his money and embed bezeled it and became kdm distributors and began stealing money from his accounts. >> it was $441,000. you could see why kris would be angriment he wanted to put an end to this. >> narrator: kris sued the moo youngs and told clive he expected to win. >> there was no question of me killing them for the money. if as a matter of fact, killing them would have made me lose the money, obviously.
7:14 pm
>> narrator: if kris had little reason to walk into the dumont hotel with a loaded weapon, why was there so much evidence pointing to him as a suspect? according to kris, he went to the dupont at 9:30 a.m. on the morning of the murders to meet a potential business partner for the newspaper he started in miami. neville butler, the man who would claim to see kris commit the murders, set up the meeting. >> neville took me up, opened the apartment. >> the man kris was supposed to meet wasn't there. >> neville butler said perhaps he went out. >> the two men waited nearly an hour. >> he insisted i wait. i said, no, i'm going. i'm never late for an appointment. i'm always on time. and i left. >> narrator: at 10:30 kris drove to ft. lauderdale and attended meetings during the hours when the murders took place and he could prove it. he had alibi witnesses including
7:15 pm
an employee named tino geddes. >> tino swore he had been with kris. >> he had seen kris at lunch. >> there was a person who was sick. i needed to come in and fill in for that person. it doesn't seem like there is any way possible that he could have killed people at 12:00 and then been in for lunch some time between 12:00 and 2:00. >> narrator: five other witnesses would come forward placing kris with them at the time of the murders. >> i don't have any doubt at all i saw him that day. it was 12:00, 12:30. >> narrator: yet butler told john burr meister a con sincing account of seeing maharaj commit the murders in cold blood.
7:16 pm
someone had to be lying. butler was a home run for police. not only could he identify maharaj, he would go on to lead the detective to where he and kris planned to meet for dinner. >> i was at deny's having dinner. i saw neville walk in with a man. he showed me his card. he said, you are being arrested for murder. i said, what are you talking about? >> narrator: kris would be with taken in for interrogation and differences would be noticed about the conversation. >> kris denied ever being in room 1215. his fingerprints were all over the place. >> narrator: kris's fingerprints would only be significant if he denied being in the room. >> i told them i was in room 1215 for about an hour. >> buhrmaster said kris denied having a gun.
7:17 pm
he clearly did have a .9 millimeter pistol. >> that is another manufactured answer by mr. buhrmaster. i told him, yes, i owned a gun. i owned one when i was living in trinidad. >> narrator: he never took a sworn statement to document that. a lie detector test kris took that evening would support kris's version of events. >> they had one of the top polygraph examiners in florida do the tests. kris passed. that was plain and simple. >> narrator: despite passing the lie detector and having numerous alibi witnesses, kris was booked and held without bail. it would be a year before he would get his day in court. >> put it this way. i went from living like a prince to existing like an animal. >> narrator: on the eve of
7:18 pm
trial, kris and his investigator ron patrillo felt good about their chances. >> kris had seven or eight al i alibis. i had located people and gotten sworn statements that put him squarely in broward county some 25 miles away during the time the murder occurreded. >> narrator: with the trial approaching, kris got word that tino geddes was about to change his story. >> everything tino said, that he was with kris, that kris was in broward county when the murders took the place, it was all a lie, according to tino. >> narrator: he was now going to testify for the prosecution. and no one, including kris, was prepared for the accusations geddes was about to make. u want. woman: but, but, jimmy. all of these travel sites seem the same. captain obvious: i always use hotels.com. with their loyalty program, i get a free night for every ten nights i collect.
7:19 pm
so they're not the same, because they're different. woman: jimmy look, this one has a king-sized bed. captain obvious: if you're travelling with your grandmother, i suggest getting twin beds. woman: oh, captain obvious, jimmy is not my grandson. woman: man: are you no. jimmy? man: here comes president roosevelt. woman: i hope so. captain obvious: i regret coming here. hotels.com. for lovers. that's a man interviewino.for a job. not that one. that one. the one who seems like he's already got the job 'cause he studied all the right courses from the get-go. and that's an accountant, a mom, a university of phoenix scholarship recipient, who used our unique --scratch that-- awesome career-planning tool. and that's a student, working late, with a day job, taking courses aligned with the industry he's aiming to be in. ready to build an education around the career that you want? let's get to work. [laughs] when we're having this much fun, why quit? and bounty has no quit in it either. watch how one sheet of bounty keeps working, while their two sheets, just quit.
7:20 pm
bounty, the no-quit picker-upper. really... so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 dollars a month? yup. all five of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential? add a line anytime for 15 bucks a month. low dues... great terms... let's close. introducing at&t mobile share value plans... ...with our best-ever pricing for business.
7:22 pm
kris maharaj was facing the death penalty for the murders of derrick and duane moo young when shortly before trial, tino geddes, one of kris's key alibi witnesses had a dramatic change of heart. >> tino geddes worked for kris at a newspaper kris owned. from day one he swore to me that he had been with kris. now tino has changed his story on the day the murders were committed. he wasn't with kris, kris wanted the moo youngs dead. >> tino was now claiming kris's actions in the murders had been premeditated. john castranakes was a
7:23 pm
prosecutor on the case. >> mr. geddes told us he had been with kris maharaj on several occasions when he had tried to kill the victims and members of their family. and that kris maharaj's soul motive was the death of derrick moo young. >> tino said kris did a dry run at the hotel where he planned to murder the moo youngs and kris would burst through from room 404 to room 406 to do it. i went to the dupont and there is no door between 404 and 406. there are all sorts of reasons why tino is lying. the question was why. >> why do you think geddes changed his story? >> tino geddes hadded a dui trial coming up. he was also being charged for smuggling guns and ammunition. >> if he was smuggling a bunch of guns into jamaica at a time of harsh sentencing. the vast majority of people when they face life in prison are
7:24 pm
willing to say what the prosecution wants them to say about pretty much anything, probably about their grandmother. >> in tino geddes's misfortune, the prosecution sensed an opportunity and flew to jamaica to help their new witness. >> they went to testify on his behalf and got him off with, i think, just a fine instead of doing jail time. i thought, well, okay. they're doing their job. until i found out they and tino went to a strip club. a lot of people would say, well, what they do on their time is their business. but they are there on my dime as a taxpayer testifying on behalf of this man and they go to a strip club with him? i would say they got a little
7:25 pm
too close. >> kris's trial began october 5, 1987. almost exactly one year after the murders occurred. it was presided over by judge howard gross, known to friends as mousey because of his small frame and large ears. kris's attorney was eric hendon who helped other accused killers avoid the death penalty. during opening arguments the prosecution contended the moo youngs were innocent businessmen gunned down by kris, the cold-blooded killer. hendon told the jury they would hear fictional stories from the prosecution worthy of a hollywood drama. but on the third day of trial, the proceedings came to a sudden halt. >> what happened on day three of the trial, if you can believe it, is that the mouse doesn't show up because he's been arrested taking kickbacks in another case.
7:26 pm
he'd been caught by enforcement agents posing as drug dealers. >> narrator: it was a golden opportunity for kris's lawyer to call for a mistrial. with a new trial hendon would know the prosecution's arguments ahead of time. without a new trial, the judge replacing mousey could face deciding the death sentence without hearing all the evidence. >> i wanted a mistrial. hendon, to me, my advice isn't to ask for a mistrial. >> he said they would go on with the trial because he felt they had a good jury and he'd made headway. probably the main motivation was he was on a set fee. you're going to have to start over and that cuts into your fee. >> hendon would maintain he worked hard on behalf of his client, but letting the trial continue seemed an unusual choice and the jury would go on to hear six days of testimony. all directed against kris. neville butler testified about
7:27 pm
the graphic details of the murders he said he'd watched kris commitment geddes told prosecutors kris asked him to fabricate an alibi. detective john buhrmaster said kris tried to cover up the crime during his interrogation. when the case was finally turned over to the defense, hendon's judgment would, again, come into question. >> he said to me if he didn't call any witnesses he would have two shots at the jury in closing argument. i said, you're not going to do that. i have all these witnesses. you're not going to do that. he didn't answer me. >> eric hendon's defense case for kris would consist of only nine words. >> eric stood up and said, your honor, the defense rests. he didn't call a single witness. nothing.
7:28 pm
i thought kris was going to rip the skin off my forearm. >> i just couldn't believe it. i was shocked. >> it's not often in a capital case you get six alibi witnesses putting your client somewhere else. why on earth did the client not put those on? >> i have never wanted to hit another human being, physically attack another human being like i did that day with eric hendon. >> the jury responded to hen don's strategy by returning guilty verdicts for two first-degree murders. they would also vote whether to recommend the the death penalty. with florida being the only remaining state where a simple majority is needed in sentencing, the vote in favor of death passed by a count of 7-5. the judge who replaced mousey agreed. kris would be sentenced to die
7:29 pm
7:30 pm
7:33 pm
when clive finally got the chance to appeal kris's case in 1995, he immediately set out to present all the alibi witnesses who were never called at trial. >> i talked to the alibi witnesses. they were very convincing. they said, it's true. kris was not at the dupont plaza hotel at 12:00 noon that day. he was with us. in ft. lauderdale. >> kris's alibis fell on deaf ears as the courts would only consider whether kris had received a fair trial in 1987. >> it's very hard to win a case on just saying the facts of it. mostly it's about what people call legal technicalities. >> clive did have an opening. if he could show kris's attorney
7:34 pm
had been ineffective in representing kris, he would open the door to a new trial and new witnesses. ben cuney also worked on the appeals and would cross-examine hendon. >> eric needed help in a case of this magnitude. kris suffered the consequences as a result of his lawyer's errors. >> narrator: but hendon needed to admit he made mistakes. when ben asked why he didn't present the alibis he said, it appeared the witnesses were sought out. it appeared all too convenient. in other words, hendon didn't believe any of the alibis. >> how is one lawyer going to be the judge of the credibility of a witness who could be the key to a not guilty verdict? that's not a decision for a lawyer to make. not with the stakes this high.
7:35 pm
>> hendon said he had a strategic reason for not putting on the alibi. he thought the alibi was too good. once a lawyer says that, it takes it out of the realm of ineptitude and becomes a strategic lawyer. >> narrator: ultimately they refused to find hendon had been ineffective. clive was still convinced kris was innocent and while preparing further appeals he came across the prosecution's files and discovered evidence he felt police and prosecutors apparently didn't want kris to have. >> i start going through it. i discovered the police knew kris had lost his gun before the murders took place. i discovered that kris had actually told them tr the beginning he'd been in room 1215. so all the fingerprints, there was a perfectly innocent explanation. >> narrator: clive had seen photographs of a briefcase
7:36 pm
belonging to the moo youngs. the contents were something ron petrillo requested to see before kris's trial. >> i went to the detective bureau. buhrmaster was too busy to see me. he sent out a young girl. i opened the briefcase and it's empty. i said to her, where are the contents? she said, detective buhrmaster told her to tell me that he didn't find anything of any evidentiary value and returned the contents to the family. >> buhrmaster said they got rid of the moo youngs' briefcase. that wasn't true. here in the file were hundreds of pages of notes of the moo youngs. all sorts of intriguing stuff. it was like christmas. far from the innocent people making $24,000 a year as they were portrayed at trial. they were offering loans around
7:37 pm
the caribbean to the tune of first $100 million, then $250 million. it's just extraordinary stuff. >> they didn't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out. where were they coming up with $100 million. >> shortly before their deaths, derricks and duane moo young took out $1 million in life insurance. the company found the timing suspicious and hired an attorney to gavt investigate. >> theoretically they were involved in import-export. but the headquarters which consisted of a garage at the family home had only an old telex machine and no documents whatsoever. the more we learned about it, it seemed they were either selling fictitious goods entirely or they were laundering the money. >> narrator: if the moo youngs were involved in money laundering, whose money were they laundering? >> those kinds of dollars and
7:38 pm
narcotics go hand in hand in miami, particularly in the 1980s. >> i didn't really get that. i really didn't understand miami many the '80s. >> say hello to my little friend! >> federal agents seized 25,000 pounds of cocaine. >> in the early 1980s the moo youngs were operating in a city where drug smuggling was bringing in $7 billion to $12 billion a year. >> the banks in miami had more money than all the other banks in the country put together. people were walking in and buying mercedes and porsches for cash. >> miami could be described as the overseas corporate headquarters for money laundering for the columbian. >> narrator: with so much drug money at stake cartel violence ballooned into what would be known as the cocaine wars. law enforcement was quickly overwhelmed. >> we had bank robberies, kidnapping, extortion.
7:39 pm
one with of the guys shot me through the fingers, in the back of the arm. standing between my legs, i went to kick him and he shot me in the groin. i figured he would kill me. >> the drug dealers were the most violent, desperate criminals we ever had in south florida. they'd see a pretty girl in a car. they would rape and kill the girl and keep the car. >> narrator: miami's homicide rate doubled turning miami into the murder capital of the nation. >> there have been so many murders lately that a special refrigerated truck is being used to store the bodies. >> narrator: it turned out it was a refrigerated truck they rented from burger king to hold the overflow of bodies. >> narrator: clive was beginning to see the frame around the picture of the murders. he now wondered whether the moo youngs were caught in the cross hairs of miami's cartel violence.
7:40 pm
clive felt the road map could be found in the moo youngs' briefcase. >> we figured out they were laundering money for the cartels. they got greedy. they came up with a great plan to skim 1% of the money. if you're ripping off the columbian drug cartels there is a strong motive for you getting killed than what was going on with kris. it reframed the case. now we have a huge alternative suspect. >> narrator: a suspect that happened to be staying in the room directly across the hall tr from the murders. hands were . legs, for crossing. feet...splashing. better things than the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. if you're trying to manage your ra, now may be the time to ask about xeljanz. xeljanz (tofacitinib) is a small pill, not an injection or infusion, for adults with moderate to severe ra
7:41 pm
for whom methotrexate did not work well. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers have happened in patients taking xeljanz. don't start xeljanz if you have any infection, unless ok with your doctor. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened. your doctor should perform blood tests before you start and while taking xeljanz, and routinely check certain liver tests. tell your doctor if you have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common, and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. tell your doctor about all the medicines you take, and if you are pregnant, or plan to be. taken twice daily, xeljanz can reduce the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe ra, even without methotrexate. ask if xeljanz is right for you. of moderate to severe ra, even without methotrexate. really... so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 dollars a month? yup. all five of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text.
7:42 pm
we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential? add a line anytime for 15 bucks a month. low dues... great terms... let's close. introducing at&t mobile share value plans... ...with our best-ever pricing for business. ♪ f provokes lust. ♪ it elicits pride... ...incites envy... ♪ ...and unleashes wrath. ♪ temptation comes in many heart-pounding forms. but only one letter. "f". the performance marque from lexus.
7:44 pm
clyde stafford smith uncovered evidence suggesting that before the moo youngs were murdered they may have been stealing money from a columbian drug cartel and a photo from the crime scene would buttress that feeling. >> there were blood drops in the hall and blood smear on the door frame of 1214. it begs the question, who was in 1214? >> did you find out? >> oh, yeah. i wound up bribing an employee.
7:45 pm
i found out it was a guy named majiha. >> majiha said he was from columbia. the truth was he would soon be busted by the drug formt organization for money laundering. >> detective buhrmaster said, i chatted with him for a few minutes. standing in the hallway. he didn't seem to know anything. >> this is the only other guy who's there, only other room occupied on the floor. we discover that he was wanted at the time of kris's trial for conspiracy to take $14 million in cash in a suitcase to switzerland. >> former dea agent dave larino had his own opinion. >> majiha was not only working for escobar but there was money for the ochoyo organization as
7:46 pm
well. he said he worked for u.s. insurance companies. that doesn't make sense. people who sell insurance don't run an import-export business. why is there blood on his door if everything happened across the hall? it doesn't add up. there were a series of questions that should have been asked of him that weren't asked. >> officers took a brief statement from mejia and let him go. would the jury have found an alternate explanation for murder if they had seen evidence about the moo youngs and mejia? while preparing kris's appeals clive pieced together his own theory of the scheme that played out that day. >> what happened was this. the moo youngs were laundering money for the cartels. they started skimming money off the top. they got in trouble. they were set up so they would meet in the dupont plaza hotel and kris was meant to be there,
7:47 pm
too. all three were meant to die. it was going to be left as a murder-suicide where you've got the two guys you like killed and someone else fingered for it. clearly neville butler was there. somehow mejia must have been supervising it. >> but the courts weren't the least bit interested in clive's theoretical suspects or the evidence he'd uncovered. innocence wasn't the issue. >> one of the bizarre things i think most americans have no idea about is that whether you are innocent or not is not a legal issue. you go in and say, my guy is innocent. they say, too bad, mate. that's got nothing to do with it. the judge actually said that in kris's case. >> clive manageded to introduce a document that the courts could not ignore. a document showing kris's death sentence was written by someone other than kris's judge. >> i had seen a certain amount
7:48 pm
of judicial corruption. i find orders sentencing kris to death dated 13 days before the sentencing hearing. they were written by the prosecutor. it said jsk. that's john kastranakes. >> in allowing the prosecutor to wiet the death sentence, the judge who replaced mousey had decided to impose the death penalty before hearing kris's character witnesses at the sentencing phase of trial. >> the judge asks the prosecutor, would you prepare a proposed sentencing order imposing the death penalty before the sentencing had been completed. anybody in the world would say, what? that's not allowed. >> narrator: the evidence was enough to vacate kris's death sentence. he would no longer be scheduled to die in the electric chair. kris was far from a free man.
7:49 pm
clive and ben would now argue for a more lenient sentence for kris in front of a judge and jury who could once again sentence kris to death. this was not a trial about innocence or guilt, only the proper punishment and kris's wife would look on. at the hearing the state brought back kris's familiar detractors, detective john buhrmaster and neville butler who confirmed their original testimony. >> what did you observe about him? >> that he had a gun in one hand, a pillow in the other. >> the jury was not allowed to hear any of the new evidence clive had discovered. they did the listen to 24 character witnesses in support of kris, including peter bottomley, kris's friend from the british parliament who testified via satellite. >> i like him and i respect him. i find him the kind of person who i'm pleased to be associated with. >> narrator: finally the jury
7:50 pm
would hand down a new sentencing recommendation for kris. >> the jury advises and recommends to the court to impose a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the first 25 year ares. >> the judge imposed a life sentence. that saved kris's life. >> that just meant he wasn't on death row anymore. he was still going to die in prison. >> narrator: kris's appeals had gone through the florida courts and the federal level without so much as a hearing about his innocence. so the question remained, why was there so much evidence that kris did not commit the murders? as it turned out, one man had an answer to that question -- a cop who said he was there the day of the murders and knew all about them because he helped cover them up. the summer. the summer of this.
7:51 pm
the summer that summers from here on will be compared to. where memories will be forged into the sand. and then hung on a wall for years to come. get out there, with over 50,000 hotels at $150 dollars or less. expedia. find yours. here at the hutchison household. but one dark stormy evening... there were two things i could tell: she needed a good meal and a good family. so we gave her what our other cats love, purina cat chow complete. it's the best because it has something for all of our cats! and after a couple of weeks she was healthy, happy, and definitely part of the family. we're so lucky that lucy picked us. [ female announcer ] purina cat chow complete. always there for you.
7:54 pm
7:55 pm
backgrounds of the people. >> 11 officers have been arrested or relieved of duty this year. >> they put in additional background investigators. some of those people were tied into the drug dealers. >> the latest allegations go beyond cocaine and cops. charges now of first-degree murder. >> we can say we are trying to clean our own house. >> everybody you thought you could trust you can't trust anymore in miami. >> as it turned out, one police officer jailed for corruption would hear about koris's case ad tell clive he knew what happened because he was there. >> i had started courting -- that's the only word for it -- a witness who was within the police who could tell the truth. this officer told me that the police back in the 1980s had a deal with the drug dealers where they would protect the murderers going around killing people in the drug cases.
7:56 pm
they would frame someone else for the crime. this officer told me, yeah, yeah, kris was framed. my former partner did it. he told me he'd done it. >> narrator: it took clive a year to convince the former cop who asked to be called fred to go on the record. in a sworn statement fred declared i was formerly a police officer in miami. i was persuaded by another prisoner to tell what i know about kris maharaj to tell what. i don't expect to benefit from the case. i moe the particulars of the maharaj case. i visited the scene when it happened. i know mr. maharaj was framed because officers investigating the double murder told me flat out they were going to do this. i have a moral duty to help free a man who had been framed and in prison for 26 years and spent many of those years on death row. he could have been executed for something he did not do.
7:57 pm
while fred may believe the cops in kris's case were on the take, he has never identified the individuals involved. no evidence has been presented in court to substantiate his claim. recently, some of clive's suspicions about who killed the moo youngs were confirmed when he sent someone to columbia to speak with the man who was across the hall from the murders. mejia was flanked by four men with guns when he confirmed the moo youngs had run afoul of the drug smuggers in the 1980s. he said the moo youngs had to be dealt with. >> i visit kris every week.
7:58 pm
i don't tell people about kris's case. i don't discuss kris's case because if i tell them, they will think i'm crazy. he's not losing his hopes, you know, that's good. >> all i can say about her is god sent her to me. she's a blessing sent by god. if i would switch places with marita, i would not have put up with what she did. she's one in a million. she's the heroine of this tragedy. >> you could not have a better husband. even now that he's in prison there is nothing really he can do for me. but he has a lot of hope. >> narrator: in 2008, clive and ben kuhne submitted a clemency appeal documenting the actions of police and prosecutors in the case and presenting the new evidence they had found.
7:59 pm
>> there was a very strong case. kris had been in prison for over 20 years which is a long time to serve for anything. but the victims' family showed up en masse. it was charlie crist was the governor at the time. he instantly denied clemency. by now kris is 70 years old. he's if bad health. his poor wife marita has stuck by him. i have been representing kris now for 18 years. i have failed to get him justice. the most culpable character in kris's case is the justice system. it is just not interested in justice. as we develop more and more evidence to prove that, a, he's innocent and, b, had an unfair trial, no one wants to listen.
8:00 pm
in his documentary "weed," -- >> you have looked at the evidence. >> there's real science out there. >> a year-long journey that changed what many of us thought about marijuana, myself included. >> i think we've been terribly and systematically misled. >> we used to only picture this. then we showed you this. medical marijuana treating seizure, pain, dozens of other ailments. >> charlotte is doing amazing, better and better each month. b
101 Views
Uploaded by TV Archive on