Lionel Tate sentenced to 30 years in prison

BY JON BURSTEIN
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Tears ran down Lionel Tate's chubby cheeks when the 14-year-old left a Florida courtroom in handcuffs as the youngest American ever sentenced to life in prison.

Five years later, following two squandered 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 Broward Circuit Judge Joel Lazarus.

Tate still could spend the rest of his life in prison after making a legal 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 wants 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 onto his 30-year sentence if he's convicted at his scheduled Sept. 18 trial. 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, Fla., home. A jury convicted him in 2001 of first-degree murder, leaving Lazarus with no legal choice but 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 has 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 from when he was arrested in May 2005 to December. Broward Sheriff's Office 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."

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

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 believed 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 Attorney 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 Tate has shown "disdain and disrespect for the law in general, and the judicial system in particular." The judge cited Tate's attempt in December to feign hearing voices in his head urging him to commit suicide.

"The time has come to finalize the tragic events of the summer of 1999," the judge said. "The time has come to lay to rest the anguish of those who remember and love Tiffany Eunick."

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." [MORE]