Robber who gunned down Columbus armored truck guard loses appeal

A Georgia death row inmate who in 1995 gunned down a Brinks security guard outside Columbus’ downtown SunTrust bank has lost an appeal in federal court.

Leon Tollette was appealing only the death penalty a jury gave him, as he pleaded guilty to killing Brinks guard John Hamilton during a robbery on Dec. 21, 1995, when Tollette approached Hamilton from behind and shot him four times, once in the head, and fled with the money bag Hamilton had.

A former gang member and drug dealer, Tollette had come here from California at the invitation of an accomplice, Xavier Womack, who planned the robbery after studying the Brinks schedule for collecting bank receipts.

Tollette later would claim he fired out of fear when Hamilton turned around and saw him coming. A flurry of gunfire ensued as other guards and police immediately tried to prevent his escape.

The truck’s driver, Carl Crane, shot at Tollette, as did Cornell Christianson, who was driving a nearby Lummus Fargo truck. Womack, who had been watching from across the street, started shooting at the guards to aid Tollette’s escape.

Finally Robert Oliver, a police officer accompanied by a cadet, confronted Tollette, who tried to shoot at Oliver, too, but had no more live rounds in his revolver. He dropped the gun and surrendered. Womack and a getaway driver fled without him.

Tollette never went to trial for the crime itself. Instead he pleaded guilty Nov. 3, 1997 to murder, armed robbery, being a convicted felon with a firearm, using a firearm to commit a crime and two counts of aggravated assault.

He had only a sentencing trial for a jury to decide whether he should get life with parole, life without parole or death. On Nov. 11, 1997, jurors sentenced him to death.

He since has filed repeated appeals claiming ineffective assistance of counsel and numerous procedural errors. He initially moved for a new trial in Muscogee County Superior Court, but was denied that on Jan. 28, 1999. The Georgia Supreme Court rejected his appeal on Nov. 7, 2005, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case Oct. 2, 2006.

On May 6, 2014, Tollette filed a habeas corpus appeal in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. Attorneys since have been filing arguments in that appeal, which Judge Clay Land denied Wednesday in a ruling more than 100 pages long.

Tollette still may appeal Land’s decision. While denying the convict’s habeas corpus writ, the judge in his conclusion allowed appeals on these issues:

“Whether trial counsel were ineffective for failing to investigate and present mitigating evidence and for failing to investigate and challenge the state’s presentation of evidence about the circumstance of the murder and whether subsequent counsel were ineffective for failing to adequately litigate trial counsel’s failure.”

Tollette claimed the “mitigating evidence” that might have drawn sympathy from the jury was his troubled upbringing in the Los Angeles area. The evidence he cited provided a synopsis of his background:

Born Dec. 29, 1968, he grew up without his alcoholic father and claimed the man his mother later married beat him.

He started drinking and using drugs in his early teens, and joined a chapter of the Crips street gang at age 14. He left home two years later.

A girlfriend who met him in 1993, when she was 18 and he in his mid-20s, said he stayed with gang members next door to her grandparents’ home in Gardena, Calif., and though he had no job, he drove a BMW and wore expensive clothes and jewelry.

He later had two other girlfriends, one who bore him a son, and they, like Tollette, both wound up in prison. Tollette later claimed he became convinced one of the women was a witch who while burning candles put a curse on him.

One girlfriend said that two months before Tollette left California, he pawned his BMW and started driving and living in an old Chevrolet Malibu. His appearance deteriorated as his drinking and drug abuse increased, so he looked like he had “hit bottom,” she said.

Psychological evaluations showed that Tollette had a personality disorder with antisocial traits, that he engaged in manipulative and self-serving behavior, that he was hostile and aggressive, and that he failed to accept responsibility for his actions.

Tollette in his appeals claimed his attorneys could have elicited such testimony to gain jurors’ sympathy, showing he “was suffering from the combined effects of a severe and debilitating mental illness marked by desperation and impaired cognitive functioning and a severe drug and alcohol addiction.”

His attorneys had thought that outcome implausible: Telling the jury Tollette was an aggressive, anti-social, self-serving, drug-dealing gang member who took no responsibility for his actions more likely would have the opposite effect, they thought.

“Ultimately, they determined nothing they found would persuade the jury to have sympathy for Tollette,” Land wrote in his ruling.

Tollette also had a record, having pleaded guilty to selling cocaine on Dec. 2, 1988 and Aug. 30, 1990, and to being a felon with a firearm on May 13, 1992.

Now 57, Tollette remains on death row in the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson.

This story was originally published August 18, 2016 at 12:25 PM with the headline "Robber who gunned down Columbus armored truck guard loses appeal."