Leo Jones was a Black man executed by Florida on March 24, 1998, for the 1981 murder of Jacksonville police officer Thomas Szafranski. The Leo Jones execution in Florida is widely cited as a possible wrongful execution: his conviction rested largely on a confession he said officers beat out of him, the two officers central to his arrest later left the force under misconduct clouds, and a different man, Glenn Schofield, was repeatedly implicated by witnesses in the years that followed. The Death Penalty Information Center lists Jones among executed people for whom there is “strong evidence of innocence.”1Death Penalty Information Center. Executed but Possibly Innocent
The Shooting and the Arrest
On May 23, 1981, Officer Thomas J. Szafranski, 28, was shot once while sitting in his patrol car at 6th and Davis Streets in Jacksonville. The round came from a .30-30 rifle. Police converged on a nearby apartment and found Leo Jones and his cousin Bobby Hammonds inside, along with two .30-30 rifles. Ballistics could not match the rifles to the fatal round because of the condition of the bullets, and a hand-swab test on Jones for antimony was inconclusive.2Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Direct Appeal Brief
The Confession Jones Said Was Beaten Out of Him
After several hours of interrogation at the Jacksonville Police Memorial Building, Jones signed a written confession that Detective Hugh Eason had drafted. The statement incriminated Jones and cleared Hammonds.2Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Direct Appeal Brief Jones testified that officers beat him at the scene and again at the station and that a gun was held to his head.3Amnesty International. USA: Death Penalty — Leo Jones He was treated at a hospital for cuts and bruises to his face and neck, though prosecution medical witnesses called the injuries “superficial.”4Chicago Tribune. Questions of Innocence
The confession itself was thin. It described the weapon only as a “gun or rifle.”4Chicago Tribune. Questions of Innocence Police denied all allegations of abuse at the time, and the trial court admitted the statement.
What the Jury Heard
Jones was tried before an all-white jury.4Chicago Tribune. Questions of Innocence The prosecution rested on three things: the written confession, testimony from Bobby Hammonds that he saw Jones leave the apartment with a rifle and return after shots were fired, and a police officer’s account that Jones had said about a week earlier that he was “tired of being hassled by the police” and “intended to kill a pig.”2Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Direct Appeal Brief Assistant State Attorney Ralph N. Greene III called Hammonds’s testimony “the strongest testimony we’ve got.”5Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Third Rule 3.850 Motion Brief
Hammonds had already recanted once before trial, telling the court at a suppression hearing that police had beaten and threatened him. The defense impeached him at trial with that earlier sworn statement, in which he said he had not seen Jones with a gun that night.2Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Direct Appeal Brief The jury convicted. By a 9-to-3 vote it recommended death, and Judge A.C. Soud imposed the sentence.4Chicago Tribune. Questions of Innocence Florida law at the time allowed non-unanimous death recommendations.6ACLU. Fatal Flaws: Innocence, Race, and Wrongful Convictions
Glenn Schofield, the Other Suspect
Police had looked at another man from the start. Detective Eason ran a background check on Glenn Schofield two days after the shooting and circulated bulletins identifying him as a person of interest.5Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Third Rule 3.850 Motion Brief Jones said the rifles in the apartment belonged to Schofield, who had come by that night to buy cocaine.7Chicago Tribune. Questions of Innocence Once Jones was charged, investigation of Schofield stopped.
Over the following years, defense lawyers documented twelve separate occasions on which Schofield confessed to killing Officer Szafranski.5Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Third Rule 3.850 Motion Brief Roy “Shorty” Williams, identified as the only known eyewitness, testified that Schofield was at the scene with a rifle at the time of the shooting. A former girlfriend, Patricia Ferrell, testified in 1992 that Schofield had asked her for a false alibi and later confessed the killing to her. Prison inmates and other witnesses swore affidavits that Schofield had bragged about it. Retired Jacksonville homicide detective Anthony Hickson said a confidential informant had told him Schofield was the killer.7Chicago Tribune. Questions of Innocence
Schofield had a violent history. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter at 17, served five years, and within nine days of Officer Szafranski’s murder shot at another police officer after a bank robbery. He spent all but about three of the next 26 years in prison. Called to testify at a 1997 evidentiary hearing in Jones’s case, Schofield invoked the Fifth Amendment.5Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Third Rule 3.850 Motion Brief He was never charged with the murder.
Misconduct by the Officers Who Made the Case
The two officers central to Jones’s arrest and interrogation both left the Jacksonville force under a cloud. Officer Lynwood Mundy, who took part in the arrest, resigned in 1985 during internal investigations into perjury, filing false charges, and excessive force. Fellow officers had told an internal affairs hearing as early as 1982 that Mundy “brought false charges against suspects” and was an “outright known liar.” Detective Hugh Eason, who wrote the confession Jones signed, left the force after a 1987 grand jury investigation into allegations that he was involved in the murder of a used-car lot owner. No charges were filed.4Chicago Tribune. Questions of Innocence
The sharpest evidence came from inside the department. Retired officer Cleveland Smith, a decorated veteran who had testified for the state more than 100 times, testified at a December 1997 evidentiary hearing that Mundy had bragged for years about beating the confession out of Jones. Smith said Mundy had entered the apartment intending to kill whoever was inside and that another officer stopped him. Smith described Mundy as a “hit man” for the department who was given “certain leeway” while the department covered up his conduct.8Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Reply Brief Smith also testified that officers had been told at a roll call to do “everything in their power” to get Jones jailed before the murder even occurred.5Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Third Rule 3.850 Motion Brief Smith said he had kept quiet for years out of fear of reprisal and waited until his pension was secure.4Chicago Tribune. Questions of Innocence
Eason himself later softened. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, he admitted he had physically pulled Mundy off Jones during the interrogation and that Mundy “hit him pretty good”; at trial, Eason had denied any abuse.4Chicago Tribune. Questions of Innocence Chief Assistant Public Defender Bill White testified that Eason had privately admitted the same thing to him and then threatened to deny it under oath.8Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Reply Brief Prosecutor Greene later told the Tribune he suspected police had physically abused Jones because they were enraged over the killing of a fellow officer, and he called the circumstances of the confession the “most disturbing point of the case.”
Hammonds Recants
Bobby Hammonds’s story moved the same way the rest of the case did. At the pretrial suppression hearing he said police had beaten and threatened him into implicating his cousin, telling the state attorney, “Hey, man, you frightening me, man,” which prompted Judge Soud to tell the prosecutor to tone it down.5Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Third Rule 3.850 Motion Brief He reversed himself at trial and testified for the state.
In 1991 a defense investigator tracked Hammonds to California. He recanted again, saying his trial testimony was untrue, that he had never seen Jones with a rifle, and that police had beaten him and dictated his statement. He said an officer unloaded a handgun during the interrogation, left one bullet in the chamber, and pulled the trigger while threatening him.9Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Appeal Brief A 1992 affidavit repeated that he had been “beaten and coerced by the State into testifying falsely.” Florida courts gave the recantation little weight, reasoning that the jury had already heard Hammonds had recanted once and that his testimony was “substantially impeached.”5Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Third Rule 3.850 Motion Brief
The Final Ruling, and a Sharp Dissent
Jones’s last significant challenge was a third postconviction motion filed in late 1997 after Cleveland Smith came forward. It raised a Brady v. Maryland claim that the state had suppressed evidence of police misconduct. Smith’s testimony at the December 1997 hearing went unrebutted by the state, but the circuit court denied relief on December 31, 1997.8Florida Supreme Court. Jones v. State, Reply Brief
On March 17, 1998, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed, 5-2. The majority held that Smith’s account did not establish a Brady violation because Smith had never formally reported the information to anyone, and it found no reasonable probability that disclosure would have changed the trial’s outcome.10FindLaw. Jones v. State, No. 92234 Justice Leander Shaw, joined by Justice Harry Anstead, dissented. Shaw wrote that the case had become “a horse of a different color” and that the post-trial evidence “vastly implicates Schofield and casts serious doubt on Jones’ guilt.”7Chicago Tribune. Questions of Innocence One week later, Jones was executed.
Execution and Clemency
Leo Jones was electrocuted in Florida’s electric chair on the morning of March 24, 1998, and pronounced dead at 7:11 a.m.11CBS News. Florida Executes Cop Killer Final stay applications filed the day before with the Florida Supreme Court and a federal judge were rejected.12Deseret News. Killer of Officer Executed in Florida’s Electric Chair Amnesty International had asked Governor Lawton Chiles to commute the sentence; under Florida law commutation required the governor plus three members of the seven-member Executive Clemency Board. A juror from the original trial had written to Chiles in 1997 asking him to rescind the death warrant, citing post-trial evidence that would have led the juror to acquit.13Amnesty International. USA: Death Penalty — Leo Jones No clemency was granted. Jones was the 41st person executed in Florida since the state resumed capital punishment in 1976. Thomas Pialorsi, then president of the Jacksonville Fraternal Order of Police, said of the execution, “In the hearts of all us, it’s long overdue.”
How the Case Is Remembered
A 2000 investigation by Steve Mills in the Chicago Tribune drew national attention to the coerced-confession allegations, the evidence pointing to Schofield, and the officers’ misconduct. Mills reported that two original jurors, Robert Manley and Nadine Appleby, said their verdicts likely would have been different had they known what emerged after trial.7Chicago Tribune. Questions of Innocence The Death Penalty Information Center has since listed Jones among executed people with “strong evidence of innocence.”1Death Penalty Information Center. Executed but Possibly Innocent In November 2025, the ACLU report Fatal Flaws: Innocence, Race, and Wrongful Convictions cited Jones’s case as an example of how coerced confessions, police misconduct, suppressed exculpatory evidence, and non-unanimous jury sentencing can combine into an outcome that cannot be undone.6ACLU. Fatal Flaws: Innocence, Race, and Wrongful Convictions No posthumous exoneration proceeding has been reported.