Ronnie Zamora, asked for parole
26 years after his brutal crime. He says he's grown up and understands his
crime. He was 15 when convicted in 1977 of breaking into his neighbor's home
then shooting her with her own handgun when she threatened to call police. His
trial was the first criminal proceeding to be televised and drew worldwide
attention.
The state parole board agreed on Wednesday to reduce Zamora's sentence by
seven years.
Now 41, he will be released from prison in June of 2005. He was eligible for
release last November after serving the mandatory 25-year portion of his life
sentence.
His original release date was scheduled to be June 7, 2012.
Zamora's attorney, Ellis Rubin, had argued that his client killed in a state
of television intoxication, brought on by watching endless hours of violence on
TV. The jury didn't buy it and sentenced him to life in prison.
Zamora spoke about what he had done in an interview with Channel 10 News
anchor Dwight Lauderdale five years ago.
"Chances are the more serious the crime -- the more attention, the more
likely you're going to get caught," Zamora said during the interview.
If Zamora gets parole, he may be allowed to return to his native country of
Costa Rica.
Rubin's Unconventional Defenses
Rubin has employed unusual strategies before. Besides Zamora's television
intoxication defense in the '70s, Rubin has used some other colorful claims to
defend his clients.
In the '80s, Rubin used the "Tutti-Frutti" defense in the case of
Prentice Rasheed. The storeowner booby trapped the roof of his Liberty City
store in an attempt to stop burglaries. A suspected burglar was killed by the
electrified booby trap. Rubin called on the expert testimony of a University of
Miami scientist who testified that since Rasheed's pet ferret named Tutti-Frutti
survived the same electric shock, it wasn't strong enough to kill a man. Rasheed
was acquitted.
Then in the early '90s, Rubin used the so-called "nymphomaniac
defense" in the Kathy Willets case. Willets ran a prostitution ring in her
Fort Lauderdale home. Rubin claimed she was addicted to sex as a side effect of
taking Prozac. Rubin argued that Willets was a nymphomaniac and her husband,
sheriff's Deputy Jeffrey Willets, acted as her pimp because he was impotent, and
they were just using prostitution as therapy.
The Willets eventually pleaded guilty. Kathy Willets was sentenced to
community service, and her husband to a short time in prison.
