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Senate panel reinstates full
$5-million for death
April 25, 2007
By ALEX LEARY
TALLAHASSEE - The parents of a
teenager who died after being roughed up by guards at a state-run
boot camp should get $5-million, not a smaller amount recommended by
lawyers, a state Senate committee voted Tuesday.
Action by the Criminal and Civil
Justice Appropriations Committee means the full Senate will vote on
the settlement as early as Friday. It would then have to go to the
House.
"Martin Lee Anderson could have
been your child or my child," said Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa.
Anderson, 14, was sent to the Bay
County boot camp for juvenile offenders after taking his
grandmother's car on a joyride. On his first day, he collapsed
during a run and surveillance video shows guards thrashing him.
Experts say he was suffocated,
disputing the original finding that he had a blood disorder known as
sickle cell trait.
The family already has received
$2.4-million from the Bay County Sheriff's Office, which operated
the camp for the Juvenile Justice Department.
With Gov. Charlie Crist's backing,
it sought $5-million from the state. But lawyers who reviewed the
case for the Legislature said the family should get $2.3-million.
On Tuesday, Sen. Victor Crist,
R-Tampa, withdrew an amendment for the smaller amount.
The panel then voted unanimously to
give the family $4.8-million, since the state has already paid
$200,000.
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