They Clubbed The Homeless Vet To Death / Judge Feels Sorry Reduces Sentence
The youngest of three Broward teens to go to prison for clubbing a sleeping homeless man to death saw his life sentence reduced to 40 years Thursday, the result of a U.S. Supreme Courtruling that curbed life imprisonment for juvenile killers.
Thomas Daugherty, 17 at the time of the 2006 slaying and now 23, was the only one of the three attackers to receive a life sentence. His accomplices, Brian Hooks and William "Billy" Ammons are serving 30 and 15 years, respectively
Broward Circuit Judge Cynthia Imperato reduced the sentence she imposed in October 2008 after weighing Daugherty's remorse, commitment to bettering himself behind bars, hours of testimony detailing his broken childhood and the strong words of the dead man's sister.
"Your story is clearly heartbreaking," Imperato said. "But we have someone who is dead, someone who was just sleeping on a bench, a homeless person who was beaten to death like a dog. I can't get beyond all that."
Daugherty expressed disappointment with a dejected shake of the head. Someone gasped. His relatives wept.
Daugherty, of Plantation, has been serving his sentence at a state prison in the Panhandle.
Fueled on Xanax, marijuana and vodka, Daugherty and his friends committed a trio of unprovoked predawn attacks against homeless Fort Lauderdale men in January 2006.
One of the beatings was captured on surveillance tape at Florida Atlantic University's downtown Fort Lauderdale campus. The graphic footage showed Daugherty repeatedly walloping a diminutive and defenseless man with a baseball bat and catapulted the case into the national spotlight.
The victim seen in the videotape, Jacques Pierre, survived. Norris Gaynor, 45, did not. His skull was split open as he slept on a park bench, his face, in the words of an emergency room doctor, "like a smashed pumpkin." A third victim also survived.
Taller, voice deeper, posture more erect, clearly more mature than when he last appeared in Imperato's courtroom, Daugherty shuffled to the witness stand in shackles and apologized for his "horrible and wrong" actions and asked for a second chance. His tears came quickly.
Daugherty told the judge he abhors the aimless, drugged-out person he was back then and while incarcerated has sought "to get as far away from that person that I was."
"I hate who I was," Daugherty said. "I hate everything about that person. I don't remember that video. I don't remember doing that to Mr. Pierre. But when I saw that, I hated that person and I don't understand who that person was. I know that it was me. I'm responsible."
Daugherty's mother, Bridget, pleaded mercy for the son she wronged, supplying him with crystal meth, darvocet, marijuana, alcohol and myriad other drugs.
"My son Tom is paying for my sins, not his sins," she choked out through tears. "I ruined my life and in ruining my life, I ruined his life. Thomas, I am sorry."
Daugherty's parents and aunt attested to the reform they've seen take place. Daugherty, they said has gained insight, embraced repentance and transformed into a leader not a follower, a goal-oriented role-model prisoner with a thirst for motivational and spiritual reading.
"He has returned to his normal, loving, friendly, kind self," Daugherty's father, also named Thomas Daugherty, said.
Determined not to "stagnate" behind bars, Daugherty said he works as an inside groundskeeper and recreation orderly, is intent on earning a college degree and reads vociferously, taking particular inspiration from Ernest Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea."
But the most powerful words came from Gaynor's sister, Simone Manning-Moon. She effectively rebutted defense testimony with dramatic counterpoint of her brother, a U.S. Army veteran whose life was taken so violently.
"He has so many dreams he wants to accomplish. So did my brother."
"He's too young for this. So was Norris."
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