Valdes had a long history of being uncooperative

By LUCY MORGAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 24, 1999

TALLAHASSEE -- To prison guards, Frank Valdes was a violent, out of control death row inmate who had killed one corrections officer and repeatedly threatened to kill others.

But he was also a smart, street-savvy guy who could write a court brief as well as many lawyers. And it would appear he had a way with women who didn't mind an affair of the heart with a guy who was going to spend his life behind bars.

Valdes entered the Florida prison system when he was 17, to serve a three-year sentence for burglary. He also had been in trouble as a juvenile and served some time at Okeechobee Juvenile Correctional Institution at 15.

He was 36 last week when he died after prison guards fought with him in his cell.

Born Joy Francis Valdes on Oct. 28, 1962, in Brooklyn, N.Y., he moved to South Florida in his early teens. His father, a furniture store employee, and his mother divorced when he was 10 and his father remarried. He had two older sisters and an older brother. Most family members never visited him in prison. His mother died in 1990.

In the beginning of his life in prison, Valdes wanted to learn. He got his high school equivalency certificate in prison and went on to take community college courses before an escape attempt and the killing of a prison guard sent him to death row.

Early progress reports indicate he was a "satisfactory" inmate who received few disciplinary citations. He was evaluated when he was sentenced to death in 1990, and officials said he was cooperative and likely to adapt well to institutional routine because of his prior experiences in prison.

From the very beginning, Valdes was obviously outspoken and ready to file written grievances over almost anything. His inmate file is filled with his neat, hand-written complaints and requests.

Valdes and prison officials couldn't agree on the simplest thing, not even his name. Because he was indicted as Frank Valdez, that's the way his name appears in all prison files. His birth certificate, however, says "Valdes."

Inexplicably, Valdes ordered information from the Chamber of Commerce, saying family members wanted to move a business from New York to Miami. He wanted maps of the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands. He wanted a Bible, then a copy of the Book of Mormon Prayer and even a copy of the Koran. He changed his religion from Catholic to the Church of Latter-day Saints and later returned to Catholicism.

One day he asked for the location of the Department of Corrections Web site. "Give us the exceptional reason you need it," prison officials responded without pointing out the obvious: Death row inmates don't have computers.

Sometimes Valdes apologized for bothering the corrections officers. Once he even signed a request "humbly." Other times he cursed them and occasionally he drew a homemade knife and threatened them. Once, he punched a guard in the nose.

"Inmate refused . . ." is one of the most common phrases that appears in his files. Sometimes he refused to shave. Sometimes he refused a shower. He consistently refused to stand near the front of his cell and repeat his inmate number during prison counts. Each time he was accused of violating the rules he refused to sign the forms advising him of the violation. He refused to take the reading and psychological tests given to new inmates when they enter the prison system. Once he refused to sign a form attesting to his refusal to see a lawyer who was at the prison to see him.

"Inmate refused to sign the refusal," noted the corrections officers.

He complained repeatedly: loud noises on his cell block annoyed him, he needed thermal underwear, he wanted more stationery, his mail was late, he wanted contact visits with his wife, he needed greeting cards, he wanted a vegetarian diet and then he wanted to go back to a regular diet. He needed law books, a copy of the U.S. and Florida constitutions. He fought for permission to marry Wanda Eads, a West Palm Beach woman who eventually did become his wife. Then he fought to get rid of Eads, asking prison authorities to remove her from his visiting list and return her mail.

After Eads, Valdes established a relation of sorts with a 74-year-old Tampa woman who gained prison approval to visit him. He described her as his fiancee and once sought emergency permission to call her because of a personal problem.

Twice he was caught in an interview with different female lawyers engaging in conduct that earned him reprimands. Death row inmates aren't supposed to hold hands or kiss lawyers, the guards noted.

He complained about guards who didn't honor his requests and once asked to have another inmate he described as "an odious and obnoxious individual" removed from his cell block for acting like a lunatic. Like a relentless machine, the prison's internal bureaucracy cited Valdes with disciplinary reports. Virtually every time, they ended with him being found guilty, sent to disciplinary confinement, stripped of gain time and denied privileges.

In September 1995 Valdes stepped out of his leg cuffs while being led to a shower and pulled a homemade knife that he used to cut another inmate and threaten prison guards. He was accused of armed assault.

Found guilty, Valdes was moved out of the regular death row cells at Florida State Prison and into a cell on what is now called X Wing, a section of the prison reserved for the most unmanageable inmates. On X Wing inmates have no access to television, few possessions, little exercise and infrequent showers.

Valdes grew more and more uncooperative, often screaming profanities and racist slurs at guards.

In July 1996 a Gainesville psychiatrist was appointed to examine Valdes. Valdes was found competent to represent himself in appeals of his death sentence.

Michael Radelet, a University of Florida sociology professor who studies the death penalty, said he had visited Valdes for many years but stopped about a year ago.

"Increasingly, he was pushing away everybody who tried to assist him in his case, and at the same time he was just increasingly handling his own appeals and wanting to be left alone," Radelet said.

"There's a bit of Cool Hand Luke in him. He absolutely refused to let the conditions of the prison get him down, while at the same time he was behaviorly suffering from increased depression."

He was also brilliant, Radelet said.

"Frank was not an easy prisoner," Radelet said. "He was recalcitrant and I'm sure a behavior problem. But he still fit in the bell-shaped curve. It wasn't like he was totally wacko and trained professionals couldn't handle him."

© Copyright 1999 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.