Court TV Host: Talk to Bradley Scott, who lived for three years on Florida’s death row. It’s an amaz­ing sto­ry. A 12 year old girl was mur­dered in Florida in 1978. Bradley Scott was ques­tioned about it at the time. He took a lie detec­tor test. He had an ali­bi. Seven years lat­er, pros­e­cu­tors charged him with the crime of first degree murder…and asked for the death penal­ty. But they lost evi­dence from the pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tion. Scott claimed he could­n’t clear him­self prop­er­ly. His court-appoint­ed attor­ney left — he quit to go work for the state just sev­er­al days before he went to tri­al. Scott was convicted…and sen­tence to death in 1988. But he got a new lawyer, and in 1991, he was freed. The Florida state Supreme Court ordered his acquit­tal because, it said, the state had had an ​“unjus­ti­fied” delay in bring­ing the case and that the cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence did not make a case against Mr. Scott. His sto­ry is now being told in a new play in New York called ​“Exonerated” which chron­i­cles, the sto­ries of a group of freed death row inmates. Mr. Scott was in New York last week for the pre­miere of the play, which has attract­ed a num­ber of well-known actors who are per­form­ing in the play on a rotat­ing basis. Among the actors are Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Charles Dutton and Sarah Jones.

Court TV Host: Hello every­one, our guest Bradley Scott is here with us.

Court TV Host: Welcome, Mr. Scott.

Bradley Scott: Hello

jenn1801 asks: What kind of crime were you accused of committing?

Bradley Scott: I was accused of killing a 12 year old Port Charlotte girl. This hap­pened in 1978. In 1978, approx­i­mate­ly two months after the mur­der, I was being inves­ti­gat­ed for an assault on a 16 or 17 year old girl. I was con­vict­ed of a sim­ple assault. They want­ed to know my where­abouts on the night of the mur­der. At that time, I had told them that that was 2 months ago, I did­n’t remem­ber exact­ly where I was, I would need a cal­en­dar. They gave me a cal­en­dar, and I told them where I was, I gave them a com­plete ali­bi. They said okay. I found out that they had called my wife, and that they had called her down and she had gone down, and appar­ent­ly she had giv­en the same exact sto­ry that I had giv­en them. We had no com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Once they talked to her, they said they would need some proof. She had receipts, which had the date time and store where we had been, and what we bought that night. We had one auto­mo­bile, and the mur­der hap­pened approx­i­mate­ly 25 miles away from my house. She brought the receipts and even the stuff we bought that night. They did­n’t tell me that they had spo­ken to her, and they asked me whether I would take a poly­graph exam­i­na­tion, and I said most cer­tain­ly I would. So two days lat­er, I took the poly­graph exam. Nothing was said to me at all. I was released from jail about a month after that. I went home to my wife and son, and was going to move to about a month after release, and we did so.

illiniguy1 asks: Why were you the chief suspect?

Bradley Scott: I was­n’t. They had 100 sus­pects at the time. Anyone who was in the coun­ty jail, or who had any crim­i­nal record; they inves­ti­gat­ed every­one. This was a high pro­file case. This was a young girl who had been bru­tal­ly mur­dered. I was will­ing to give them any infor­ma­tion so that I would not be a sus­pect, so that they could find out who did it. There was about 50 of us in the coun­ty jail that was inves­ti­gat­ed. Even though the vic­tim was not sex­u­al­ly assault­ed, any­one who may have abused a child or phys­i­cal­ly abused a child was inves­ti­gat­ed as well. And due to the fact that I had been con­vict­ed of a sim­ple assault they were inves­ti­gat­ing me. Everyone was actu­al­ly a sus­pect at the time because they want­ed to close this case. Apparently there was no evi­dence for me to be held or inves­ti­gat­ed any fur­ther. They also took my car to the sher­if­f’s depart­ment, and at that time they found no evi­dence to sup­port any wrong­do­ing in any case.

tri­ci­aplum­ley asks: How was it whit­tled from 100 sus­pects to you?

tracyc_​2000 asks: What evi­dence did they have to think you did it out of all the 100 people?

Bradley Scott: The rea­son I was picked out as a sus­pect 8 years lat­er, and arrest­ed 8 years lat­er, was that the girl that I had assault­ed start­ed to date the vic­tim’s broth­er. And then, all of a sud­den, some­where prob­a­bly in 1983, they reopened the case, and at that time, the only thing they had was her claim­ing that I told her that I com­mit­ted the crime. And then the case went dor­mant again, because there was no evi­dence to con­nect me to the crime, except her say­ing what she said. So in 1986 the case was reopened for the sec­ond time. Then they inves­ti­gat­ed but at that time, on the sec­ond or third reopen­ing of the case, they came over to inves­ti­gate me, which they did silent­ly. Then a detec­tive came to my door and asked me whether I would take a poly­graph exam­i­na­tion with the FBI, which I said I cer­tain­ly would. I did, and appar­ent­ly I must have passed it because I nev­er saw him again. The one detec­tive in the room told me that there was no prob­lem, that I was free to go. Then sev­er­al months lat­er, they arrest­ed me. On my arrival, my bond was set at $100,000 As far as I know, if you’re arrest­ed for first degree mur­der they don’t give you bond. They arrest­ed me with­out with­out indict­ing me, so they had to place a bond on me. Then, 21 days lat­er, when they had time to run my pic­ture in the paper and build a case against me, they indict­ed me, and revoked my bond.

merlinsmagik1 asks: What were the range of emo­tions you went through on death row?

Bradley Scott: That’s putting the cart before the horse… let me fin­ish the story…I went to tri­al two years lat­er. Two weeks before my tri­al start­ed, my pub­lic defend­er had quit my case and start­ed work­ing for the state attor­ney’s office, the office that was pros­e­cut­ing me. Two weeks before my tri­al, they assigned me anoth­er attor­ney. At that time the case is 10 years old. My attor­ney had no time to pre­pare for a case that was 10 years old. Although the case against me was weak, the attor­ney still had no time to pre­pare for a polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed case. Witness after wit­ness was called. I felt that the tri­al was going excel­lent­ly. Even with an attor­ney who had no time to pre­pare for the case, I still thought every­thing was going well to prove my inno­cence. A cou­ple of weeks lat­er, I was con­vict­ed of first degree mur­der and sen­tenced to die in the Florida elec­tric chair. I was shocked. I could­n’t stop cry­ing I had no idea what had hap­pened to me, or how this had all hap­pened All I knew was that I was get­ting the death penal­ty for a crime I did not commit.

mmartin121 asks: What was death row like?

Bradley Scott: You are com­plete­ly stripped of your pride, your prin­ci­ples, your morals. You’re stripped of every­thing. They make you feel like you’re an ani­mal. And you are treat­ed like an ani­mal. Your clothes are stripped off your body in front of all the men there. Then you put on your death row jump­suit. Then they put you in a sin­gle-man cell, which is a steel bunk and a toi­let and sink com­bi­na­tion, all com­bined in one stain­less steel unit bolt­ed to the wall. The door is closed behind you. And that is the end of your life. You have a lot of mixed feel­ings about your life: how did I get here? Why did­n’t peo­ple see that I was false­ly accused? It was plain as the dri­ven snow. Your emo­tions are mixed. You have no idea what you are going to do. Nobody tells you any­thing. And to me per­son­al­ly, I felt that I was already killed.

i_​like_​noah asks: What was the hard­est thing you faced being on death row that long?

Bradley Scott: My free­dom. I had a fam­i­ly who stood by me for the three years I was on death row and the two years I was in coun­ty jail await­ing tri­al, not know­ing if I would ever come home to my wife and children.

fairmont86_​98 asks: How was the food on death row?

Bradley Scott: A lot of peo­ple are mis­in­formed of the food con­di­tions of what is served to us. I have friends of mine who had a cat­tle farm, and they raised pigs on that farm. And the food is no bet­ter than the food the pigs received. You are fed in a steel dish, where food is appar­ent­ly, by the time you receive it, all mixed togeth­er. It looks just like slop. Nothing cold to drink. No drinks. No salt and pep­per. No but­ter. That is slop. Because you’re nobody. You’re marked for death. Once you’re marked for death, they have no feel­ings for you. You’re clas­si­fied as a mur­der­er, why would any one lis­ten to any of your requests for any human liv­ing con­di­tions. You’re sent to die. That’s what you’re sent to death row for.

warhorse46 asks: Tell us about a day in the life of a death row inmate.

Bradley Scott: Your day starts off at 4:30 in the morn­ing. They wake you up. A siren goes off. You have to be out of your bunk and by your bars to receive your meals. Even if you don’t eat it, you bet­ter be by the bars. First thing they do is bring you cof­fee in a 5‑gallon plas­tic buck­et, which they pour into a steel cup. after break­fast, which is slop, your choice is to lay there and cry, and feel sor­ry for your­self, or to write your fam­i­ly let­ters, to try to enter­tain your­self by writ­ing your fam­i­ly let­ters and build­ing their spir­its You don’t write your fam­i­ly and tell them how bad it is, because that’s mak­ing them endure the same pain that you’re going through yourself.

mrausty­boy asks: Were you scared to die?

Bradley Scott: That’s a hard one there. I was afraid to die only because no one would know the truth that I was there for a crime I did not com­mit and that no one would know that it was a crime I did not com­mit. While I was there, they had killed Theodore Bundy. That’s the first elec­tro­cu­tion that I had wit­nessed in my cell. By the lights flick­er­ing in all the cells, you can see the reflec­tions in the walls com­ing from all the oth­er cells. I asked the guard what was mak­ing the lights flick­er on and off. He said, ​“We’re rid­ding the world of anoth­er piece of shit.” Later, I found out the flick­er­ing of the light was due to the fact Florida Power and Light refus­es to give pow­er to death row to exe­cute men. So they use a pow­er gen­er­a­tor. In the process of killing men using the gen­er­a­tor, the gen­er­a­tor uses so much pow­er to kill a man, this is why the lights flicker.

cusoon42 asks: Why were you tak­en out of death row?

Bradley Scott: After I was on death row for two years, the state had assigned a pub­lic defend­er to my case for an appeal. When he came to see me, he told me it would prob­a­bly be anoth­er two years before he could get my case into the Supreme Court because he was short staffed and he already had ten oth­er death row inmates he was defend­ing. I told him ​“Goodbye. I would rather die than have an attor­ney like you.” He remind­ed me of my first attor­ney who quit two weeks before the tri­al. He gave me the same answers…nothing. I wrote the tri­al judge. I told the judge that I had dis­missed my pub­lic defend­er, that the state was so will­ing to give me, and I begged him, he had sat through my tri­al as well as me, we both know deep down inside that I did not com­mit this crime. I went fur­ther and begged him to please find me some kind of attor­ney who would help me fight this case. Two weeks lat­er, I received a let­ter back from the judge say­ing that he had assigned an attor­ney to the case. He gave me his name and address. I was very excit­ed about it. And wrote the day I received a let­ter from the judge. A week or so lat­er, my new attor­ney, Dennis Rehak, out of Fort Myers, wrote me back, say­ing he wants to go over my case, and that he’ll come up as soon as a does. A month or so after review­ing my case, he came to vis­it me and I was telling myself, please don’t be a non-car­ing per­son, or a per­son with a neg­a­tive atti­tude. Please God, send me some­one who will do some­thing for me and believe in me. Dennis’ first words were: ​“I reviewed your case, You don’t have to say any­thing, I believe in you. I know you did not com­mit this crime, and I’ll have you out in no time. Hopefully, six months to a year.” Six months lat­er, all sev­en jus­tices of the Supreme Court of the State of Florida had acquit­ted me of all wrong­do­ing, and gave the order for my imme­di­ate release. Needless to say, my attor­ney only had ten min­utes in the Supreme Court to argue my case.

mrtouchdown3000 asks: Do you sup­port the death penalty?

stick_​doggie_​dog asks: Do you think any crime deserves the death penalty?

Bradley Scott: I thought before, as the major­i­ty of peo­ple might think, that if a man was con­vict­ed of mur­der, he should have to pay for his crime, whether it was the gas cham­ber or the elec­tic chair, so be it. But after being con­vict­ed of a crime I did not com­mit, I real­ize that it hap­pens to oth­er peo­ple as well. You don’t know, no one knows, if you com­mit­ted the crime when you go in there. You’re just anoth­er death row inmate. Probably every­one in there will tell you that they did­n’t com­mit the crime, so I don’t have the answers as to how to divide the inno­cent and the guilty. But let’s just say, the next man you kill may be an inno­cent man. I believe now there’s 86 men who have been released from death row for crimes they did not com­mit. They have been exon­er­at­ed, though the stig­ma will always be there — the stig­ma of a convicted man.

dumb asks: Do peo­ple treat you dif­fer­ent­ly , even though you have been released from death row?

Bradley Scott: Yeah. You don’t tell any­body that. You actu­al­ly try to keep a low pro­file because you have a fam­i­ly, you have a job, a church you go to, stores you go to. You are labeled, you are marked. People find out about it, like friends, then you have to jus­ti­fy all that has been said. You find you have to prove your inno­cence to every­one who does­n’t know about the case.

qtstorm73 asks: Did you get in touch with your spir­i­tu­al side more while all of this was going on?

Bradley Scott: Most def­i­nite­ly. I was raised a Catholic. I mar­ried my wife, she was Baptist. I used to go to church, but it had no mean­ing. But if you want to find God, go to death row. You’ll find him. Because he’s the only friend you’ll have while you’re there.

jpardythe1st asks: What are you going to do now that you’re out?

Bradley Scott: I’ve been out since 1991. I’ve been on the same job for nine years. And I con­tin­ue to keep this job. It’s not that I have a lot of oppor­tu­ni­ties, although my slate has been clean, there’s always a thing called an arrest that stays on your record. So I can’t work for the gov­ern­ment, state, coun­ty, day care cen­ter. I’m very lim­it­ed in what I actu­al­ly can do because I was con­vict­ed — although I was exonerated.

southern_​37620 asks: Are you able to live a ​“nor­mal” life now?

Bradley Scott: No. And it’s prob­a­bly worse that my wife and kid went through the same ordeal. Their life was on death row. They expe­ri­enced the same thing I expe­ri­enced. My wife and kids had to go on wel­fare. I lost a top-pay­ing job. I had debts before I went in, and the same debts when I got out.

merlinsmagik1 asks: Are you going to try and get some sort of com­pen­sa­tion from the state of Florida?

Bradley Scott: I tried. In 1991, after my release, I hired a civ­il rights attor­ney He told me at that time that the leg­is­la­tors in the state of Florida, two months before my release, passed a new law, stat­ing that the state of Florida is no longer liable for neg­li­gence in a cap­i­tal felony charge of mur­der. So I was going to go after the sher­if­f’s depart­ment, and I find out that there’s a fed­er­al cap of $45,000 on what you can sue for. And it would take three years. In that time, I’d have to pay my attor­ney week­ly to take my case. And pay for every motion. It would prob­a­bly have cost $50,000 So I would have come away with noth­ing except per­haps the sat­is­fac­tion of prov­ing the injus­tice that was done. But in this world, it takes mon­ey to make money.

cynickel2 asks: How do you feel about the cur­rent justice system?

Bradley Scott: It’s prob­a­bly bet­ter here than any­where else in the world — I’ll agree with that. But some­thing needs to be done. Too much pol­i­tics in the cour­t­house. Too much media is focused on the polit­i­cal case. Once the fin­ger is point­ed at you, they don’t have to have evi­dence to convict you.

funwithme29_​99 asks: Are you hold­ing a grudge against any­one since you were almost put to death for some­thing you did­n’t do? Will you ever for­give, if so?

Bradley Scott: I think for­give­ness takes time. When I got out, I hat­ed every­one. I hat­ed the sys­tem, I hat­ed the courts, and I was just was full of hate. No revenge. Just hate. After nine years, I’ve learned that you have to keep one foot ahead of you to sur­vive. You have to put the past behind you, your hate behind you, to be able to put that foot in front of you. Forgiveness is like a gift. To receive it takes time. I’m over my pain, my suf­fer­ing, because I’ve now learned to keep that one foot ahead of me.

princess20030 asks: Do they know who did it then?

Court TV Host: The ques­tion refers to the mur­der Mr. Scott was convicted of.

Bradley Scott: No, but there was a man in 1978 who lived in the same neigh­bor­hood, and no oth­er mur­der had tak­en place there at that time. Several months lat­er, after the mur­der, this man, up North some­where, he had tak­en a can of lighter flu­id poured it all over his body, writ­ten a sui­cide note and put him­self on fire. Someone else in the park­ing lot saw him, came to his res­cue, then the police showed up and put him in a men­tal insti­tu­tion. The sui­cide note he left behind was read and sent to the state where this crime had been com­mit­ted, and when the detec­tives in the town where the mur­der was com­mit­ted, they read that he had com­mit­ted the mur­der and gave details that no one else would have known but the mur­der­er. When the detec­tives tried to inves­ti­gate it, and found out about this guy, the psy­chi­a­trists would not let them come into the facil­i­ty and so they actu­al­ly closed that case, although he con­fessed to it. Because for months they tried to get in there. But the fam­i­ly of the man was rich and pro­tect­ed him. This hap­pened in 1978, not too long after the mur­der. But they took it off the books because they could not talk to this guy. Many years lat­er, before my tri­al, my attor­ney had sent his inves­ti­ga­tors over to inves­ti­gate this sui­cide note. At that time he was still under psy­cho­log­i­cal care and was pro­tect­ed by his fam­i­ly wealth and his psy­chi­a­trists. My tri­al judge would not let the jury hear the evi­dence of this con­fes­sion. We could­n’t present the sui­cide note at all, which gave the details of the murder.

mrtouchdown3000 asks: Are you going to write a book about your experience?

angel_​off_​duty16 asks: What was/​is your biggest goal now that ou are off death row? *CANDIE* 16/​f/​toronto

canukgal_​99 asks: So what now, Bradley?

Bradley Scott: There’s no book in the mak­ing as of now. To get on with my life, I found that talk­ing about this has been a lot of help. So the last two years, I’ve been com­ing out of the clos­et and talk­ing to peo­ple about it I’ve been to Chicago, to the law uni­ver­si­ty, to speak against the death penal­ty for the wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. I just got back from New York where there was a play with myself and ten oth­er wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed men. The play is called ​“Exonerated.” I haven’t received any mon­ey from any­one. That’s not what my goal is. My goal is to tell peo­ple that there are and still could be, men on death row who are inno­cent. We have a screwed-up law sys­tem, and once you go through it, you will know what I’m talk­ing about. Hopefully some good will come out of all of it, and it’s a heal­ing process that for me seems to be work­ing, being able to talk about it. It makes you feel bet­ter about your­self, rather than if you were to hold it in. Then you feel hate. And I’m the type of per­son, I love peo­ple, I don’t want to change that. I don’t want to change my per­son­al­i­ty because of that. If I was rich or poor, it would­n’t mat­ter. Money is not the issue. It’s the state of mind As long as you’re in the right state of mind, God will see to you needs and help you get through this world.

Court TV Host: Thank you very much for join­ing us tonight and shar­ing your sto­ry with us.