Philip Workman

Philip Ray Workman is a death row inmate in Tennessee, scheduled to be executed at 1am on May 9, 2007 (CST). He was originally sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of a police officer following a botched robbery of a Wendy's restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee. Workman has been scheduled for execution six times, but has received stays of execution on each occasion. On March 30, 2001, Workman came within 37 minutes of being executed before the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned a lower court's decision to deny a writ of error coram nobis.[1]

1981 robbery

On August 5, 1981, Workman, a destitute drug addict with a wife and 8-year-old daughter in Columbus, Georgia, robbed a Wendy’s restaurant with a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol. During the robbery, an employee of the restaurant triggered a silent alarm after Workman granted her request to stand up to relieve a cramp in her leg.[2] Three Memphis police officers, Ronald Oliver, Aubrey Stoddard, and Steven Parker, responded to the alarm. Upon their arrival, Workman attempted to flee across a nearby car park, but tripped on a curb and was cornered by the officers. Workman claims he then attempted to surrender but, as he was pulling his gun from his pants to give to the officers, he was struck on the head with a flashlight. As a result of the blow, Workman claims that he involuntarily discharged the gun twice, once in the air, and then at a person who had fired at him.[3] Workman escaped the immediate melee, but a civilian found him hiding under a truck. He was covered with blood from his head wound, and had a shotgun wound to his buttocks. At the scene of the shootout, Lt. Ronald Oliver lay dying from a bullet that passed completely through his body.

1982 trial for murder

Workman was charged with the murder of Lt. Oliver. At the 1982 trial, Officers Stoddard and Parker testified that they had not fired their weapons, but that they had not seen Workman shoot Lt. Oliver. The prosecution presented testimony from an alleged eyewitness, Harold Davis, who stated that he had parked his car in the restaurant car park and was three meters away when he saw Workman shoot Oliver. The defense lawyers accepted the police version, conducted no forensic or ballistics analysis and did not investigate Davis.[4] At the sentencing phase of the trial, they presented no mitigating evidence, for example of the physical abuse Workman had suffered as a child, and his drug addiction as an adult.[5] Workman was found guilty of murder during the committing of a felony and sentenced to death.

Recanted testimony of Harold Davis

Since the 1982 trial, new evidence has called into question whether Philip Workman shot the bullet which was responsible for killing Lt. Oliver. The prosecution's case rested heavily on the testimony of Harold Davis, who claimed that he saw Philip Workman shoot Lt. Oliver. In November 1999, Harold Davis retracted his testimony, claiming that he called in the false lead to collect money to support his drug habit.[6] He later passed a lie detector test confirming that he did not witness the actual shooting. Davis claims that he was threatened that harm would come to his family members should he change his testimony.[7] Several other eyewitnesses have testified that they did not see Davis at the scene.[8] The police report on the crime scene never noted Davis’ presence. Steve Craig, an eye witness to the shooting who did not testify at the trial due to illness, signed a statement in 1995 that he had a clear view of the car park and that he had not seen Davis.

Ballistics questions

Ballistics experts have questioned whether the bullet which killed Lt. Oliver could have come from Workman's gun. Many years after the trial, Dr. Cyril Wecht, a past president of the American Board of Legal Medicine and former lead consultant on the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Assassins, has testified that, "[I]t is my professional opinion, based upon a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that the gunshot wound to [Lt.] Ronald D. Oliver is not consistent with the type of ammunition used by Mr. Philip R. Workman. I do not believe that it was Mr. Workman's gun that fired the shot that fatally wounded [Lt.] Oliver." His opinion was based on studying photographs; he never saw any of the evidence in person.

Workman was using a .45 caliber gun and hollow point ammunition. Such bullets fired from such a gun more than 90% of the time do not pass through the body but remain within the shooting victim. When they do pass through the body, the exit wound is almost always larger than the entry wound. According to medical examiner Dr. James Bell, the exit wound on Lt. Oliver's body was smaller than the entry wound. Such a wound is consistent with the .38 caliber weapons being fired by the police.[9]

At the 1981 trial, Officers Stoddard and Parker repeatedly testified that only Workman and Oliver fired guns and that therefore no one else but Workman could have shot Oliver. However, Steve Craig claims that he had seen Officer Parker fire his gun at Workman, but was told by police that "there was no need to talk about this ... unless it was with someone from the department." In January 2005, a retired Memphis police officer who went to jail for manufacturing phony drivers' certificates swore in an affidavit that the Memphis police covered up details of Oliver's shooting.[10] Neither Officer Stoddard's nor Officer Parker's revolvers were examined in the course of the criminal investigation.

Doubts of jurors, prosecutors, judges, and the victim's family

Five of the jurors which convicted Workman in 1982 have since signed affidavits renouncing either the sentence or the verdict or both.[11] Wardie Parks, a member of the 1982 jury, has stated that, "If the new evidence I reviewed had been presented at Workman's trial . . . I would have had a reasonable doubt whether Workman was guilty of first-degree felony murder, and I would have voted to acquit him of that charge."[12] Parks has said that he did not hear any ballistics evidence during the original trial and believed the testimony of eyewitness Harold Davis.

In 2000, two justices on the Tennessee Supreme Court, Justice Birch and Justice Drowata, expressed their concern, although were powerless to consider new evidence which might overturn the original verdict. Justice Birch called on the Governor of Tennessee to commute Workman's sentence. Justice Drowata said: "the circumstances of this case are by no means as egregious as most of the death penalty cases I have reviewed [and] are less egregious than many of the life sentences I have reviewed . . . The date set for execution . . . affords the Governor sufficient time to carefully consider any executive clemency application that may be filed".[13]

In 2000, Lt. Oliver's daughter and the former District Attorney who prosecuted Workman called on the Governor to grant him clemency.

Results of appellate proceedings

On March 30, 2001, just 37 minutes before Workman was scheduled to be executed, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned a decision by Judge John P. Colton, Jr. of the Shelby County Criminal Court to deny a writ of error coram nobis. The Supreme Court order stated that "if (Workman) did not fire that shot, he is not guilty of the crime for which he is scheduled to be put to death. ... No court in this state has actually held a hearing to fully evaluate the strength of these claims."[14]

The subsequent appellate proceeding was presided over by Judge Colton, who had also presided over the 1982 trial in which Workman was originally convicted and sentenced to death. Following a series of acts deemed prejudicial to the defense, Workman's attorneys asked Judge Colton to remove himself from the case, but this was denied and the hearing proceeded with Judge Colton presiding.[15] Observers contend that the subsequent trial was conducted in a manner biased against Workman, citing in particular the failure of Judge Colton to protect Mr. Davis and Dr. Wecht from abusive questioning by the District Attorney.[16] Judge Colton also disallowed Wardie Parks, a member of the 1982 jury who has since renounced his verdict, to speak as a witness of new evidence.

On January 7, 2002, Judge Colton ruled against Workman, stating that the "new evidence presented by lawyers for death row inmate Philip Workman is insufficient to warrant a new trial."[17] Judge Colton found that Harold Davis’ statements “[did] not amount to a recantation of his original trial testimony,” “were neither clear nor persuasive,” and that “[t]he only definitive statement made by Harold Davis was that he did not clearly remember the events surrounding the death of Lieutenant Ronald Oliver.”[18]

With regard to the new ballistics information, Judge Colton found that “the jury essentially heard, through the testimony of [F.B.I.] Agent [Gerald] Wilkes, the same information provided by Dr. Wecht.” Judge Colton noted that, while Dr. Wecht opined that the .45 caliber bullet fired from Workman’s gun and recovered from the scene was not the bullet that killed Lieutenant Oliver and that it was unlikely that a .45 caliber aluminum-jacketed bullet would create an entrance wound considerably larger than the exit wound, he also admitted that “he could not conclusively exclude the possibility that a .45 caliber bullet caused the fatal wound,” and “that it was possible for a .45 caliber, hollow-point bullet to create a smaller exit than entrance wound.” Judge Colton found “no testimony, including that of Dr. Wecht, which affirmatively rules out the possibility that one of the other three to five bullets shot by Workman caused the fatal injuries,” and that “the jury would have still heard the defendant’s admission that he fired his weapon and that he indeed pointed the weapon at the victim.”[19]

At the hearing, the “friendly fire” theory of how Lt. Oliver died was rejected by Memphis Medical Examiner O.C. Smith. A year later, Smith was found near his office with bound in barbed wire with a live bomb strapped to his neck. In 2005, Smith was indicted on charges that he staged an incident. A psychologist called at the trial Dietz testified that Smith may be suffering from a disorder that compels him to make up elaborate lies for attention.[20] The trial ended in a hung jury and Smith continues to serve as a medical expert for the State of Tennessee.

Current status

Following five previous stayed executions, Workman was scheduled to be executed on May 9, 2007. On May 4, a U.S. District Court Judge issued a Temporary Restraining Order precluding the State of Tennessee from executing Workman until a preliminary injunction hearing assesses the constitutionality of Tennessee's revised procedure for administering lethal injections. However, this restraining order was overturned and Philip was moved to death watch.[21]

On May 8, 2007, Workman was asked what he wanted for his last meal. He responded that he wanted a large vegetarian pizza ordered, but he wanted it given to a homeless person. The prison officials denied his request, and Workman refused to eat anything. At 10:00 p.m. central time, the Supreme Court refused to hear any appeals.

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