By TERRY AGUAYO and MARIA NEWMAN
May 18, 2006 The New York Times
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., May 18 — Lionel Tate, on probation for
murdering a younger playmate in 1999 when he was 12 years old, was
sentenced today to 30 years in prison for violating the terms of his
probation. But Mr. Tate, whose original life sentence in the killing
set off a nationwide debate over sentencing of youthful offenders,
still faces the possibility of life in prison for the act that
constituted the probation violation, robbing a pizza deliveryman at
gunpoint in 2004.
Mr. Tate, now 19, pleaded guilty to armed robbery while on probation,
charges that could have led to 10 to 30 years in prison. Later,
however, he changed his mind and asked the judge, Joel T. Lazarus of
Broward County Circuit Court, to withdraw that plea.
Today, the judge accepted the plea withdrawal for the armed robbery
charge and set that case for trial on Sept. 18, but he refused to let
Mr. Tate withdraw his plea for the charge of violating his probation.
He scolded Mr. Tate for using up his second chance.
"In plain English, Lionel Tate, you've run out of chances. You do not
get any more," Judge Lazarus told Mr. Tate. "The choices were there for
you and you chose wrong. You must bear full responsibility for all that
has transpired."
Mr. Tate, 18, received a life sentence in 2001 for stomping a younger
playmate to death in 1999, when he was 12. An appeals court reversed
his conviction in 2003, after the panel found it wasn't clear whether
Tate understood the charges.
Under a new agreement with prosecutors, Mr. Tate pleaded guilty to
second-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years' probation and a
year under house arrest.
That agreement heartened critics of Florida's stiff juvenile-offender
laws, who said locking up a child for life was itself a crime.
Mr. Tate had been free for a little over a year when he was arrested in
May 2004 and charged with the armed robbery and probation violation.
Terry Aguayo reported from Fort Lauderdale for this article and Maria
Newman from New York.