Albert Holland was sentenced to death by the State of Florida for the murder of a police officer
According to court documents Albert Holland was sexually assaulting a woman when someone called the police. Officer Scott Winters showed up to intervene and Holland would disarm the Officer and fatally shot him
Albert Holland was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Albert Holland Photos
Albert Holland Now
| DC Number: | 122651 |
|---|---|
| Name: | HOLLAND, ALBERT |
| Race: | BLACK |
| Sex: | MALE |
| Birth Date: | 03/24/1958 |
| Initial Receipt Date: | 02/13/1997 |
| Current Facility: | UNION C.I. |
| Current Custody: | MAXIMUM |
| Current Release Date: | DEATH SENTENCE |
Albert Holland Case
Albert Holland, who was tried, convicted and sentenced to death — twice — for the 1990 murder of a Broward County police officer, is once again facing the ultimate punishment.
Holland, 56, was gearing up for a third trial for the fatal shooting of Pompano Beach Police Officer Scott Winters after a federal judge ruled two years ago that a Broward judge violated Holland’s right to act as his own lawyer during his second trial.
On Monday, a federal appeals court rejected the lower court’s decision and reinstated Holland’s conviction and death sentence. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Holland’s long history of mental illness meant that the trial judge was correct in turning down Holland’s request to represent himself in court.
“We have little doubt that if the trial court had allowed Holland to represent himself, and the jury had convicted him, the claim today would be that he was in no condition to waive his right to counsel in a capital case,” the three-judge panel wrote.
The judges ruled that lower courts, including the Florida Supreme Court, “reasonably concluded that his mental condition kept him from making a knowing and voluntary waiver of the right to counsel.”
Officer Winters was 28 and working an off-duty detail on July 29, 1990, when he tried to question Holland about a brutal sexual assault on a woman in a field near Hammondville Road in Pompano Beach. The men got into a struggle that ended when Holland grabbed Winters’ gun and shot the officer twice in the groin and lower stomach, according to trial testimony.
Broward Sheriff’s Deputy George Wesolowski, a former Pompano Beach police officer who has been the main contact with Winters’ family since the murder, said Tuesday he was relieved to hear Holland is again facing the death penalty.
“We are very happy to hear that. It’s a relief to me and everyone who knew Officer Winters,” Wesolowski said.
Winters’ mother, June, died recently and efforts to contact other family members were unsuccessful.
Holland’s lawyers did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.
Broward Assistant State Attorney Carolyn McCann also welcomed the ruling.
“We’re very pleased, to say the least,” McCann said.
Holland could ask the federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling and then ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider his case, she said.
After that, Holland is pretty much out of appeals and, 24 years after his crime, McCann said: “He is ripe for a death warrant.”
Holland was first convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 after a trial where his disruptive behavior led to him being removed from the courtroom. He watched much of his trial on a closed-circuit TV in a separate room.
The Florida Supreme Court reversed that conviction, saying trial testimony about a psychiatric examination of Holland violated his rights.
He was convicted and sentenced to death again in 1997 after a second trial.
Court records show Holland, who got his GED in jail, suffered a severe brain injury while incarcerated in federal prison in 1979. He was treated for schizophrenia for years in the decade before Winters’ murder and was hospitalized and found not guilty of robbery charges twice by reason of insanity in other states.
He escaped from the psychiatric hospital twice, moved to Florida and murdered Winters, the appeals court said.
He and his lawyers at times tried to mount an insanity defense in the murder case and he showed clear signs of paranoia in court, the appeals court ruled. Though he was found mentally competent to stand trial, that did not mean he could represent himself, the appeals court ruled.
During one of the many times Holland asked to represent himself in his second trial, he told Broward Circuit Judge Charles Greene he could use some legal knowledge he picked up watching the old TV drama “Matlock.”
“From what I’ve seen in the evidence,” he said, “Ray Charles could come in here and represent himself and Stevie Wonder, so I don’t need too much legal training to do all that.”