U.S. Supreme Court rules on appeal from death-row inmate who killed Columbus Brinks guard
The U.S. Supreme Court once more has rejected an appeal from a Georgia death-row inmate condemned for gunning down a Brinks bank courier in downtown Columbus in 1995.
The high court on Monday declined to review the case of Leon Tollette, who repeatedly shot Brinks guard John Hamilton during a robbery outside what was then the SouthTrust Bank at 1237 First Ave.
The decision is just another step in the myriad of appeals available to Tollette, 52, who like others condemned to death remains housed in the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.
Tollette’s appeals have not challenged his conviction, because he pleaded guilty Nov. 3, 1997, to murder, armed robbery and aggravated assault, leaving a jury to decide only whether he should be sentenced to death or to life in prison.
His attorneys on appeal have argued jurors would not have chosen the death penalty had they heard evidence regarding Tollette’s troubled childhood in California, where he became a drug dealer and gangster, before he wound up broke, addicted and living in his car.
The defense also has alleged prosecutors misrepresented the range of penalties available to jurors in Tollette’s sentencing, and that Tollette’s trial attorneys were ineffective.
California Crip
According to court records, Tollette was the youngest of five siblings with a single mother, and grew up in the Watts and Gardena areas of Los Angeles, where he started drinking and using cocaine in his teens.
He left home when he was a high school sophomore and joined a gang, the Shotgun Crips, and dealt drugs. But his addiction to alcohol and crack eventually left him destitute, according to court testimony.
When a fellow Crip named Xavier Womack invited him to Columbus to execute a scheme he’d been planning, Tollette took the trip, arriving here just a few days before the Dec. 21, 1995 murder and robbery, records show.
Womack had studied the Brinks schedule and hatched a plan for Tollette to rob the guard as Womack served as his lookout, with a getaway driver waiting nearby.
Tollette said he panicked when Hamilton turned from loading the Brinks truck to face him, so he started shooting, hitting Hamilton in the legs, back and head.
A gunfight ensued as other guards started shooting at Tollette, and Womack returned fire to aid Tollette’s escape, before Womack and the getaway driver fled, leaving Tollette behind.
He was captured by Robert Oliver, a police officer accompanied by a cadet. Tollette tried to shoot Oliver, too, but had no more bullets in his revolver, records show.
After his guilty plea and the trial to determine his penalty, Tollette was sentenced to death on Nov. 11, 1997.
His motion for a new trial in Muscogee County Superior Court was denied on Jan. 28, 1999. The Georgia Supreme Court rejected his appeal on Nov. 7, 2005, and the U.S. Supreme Court first 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. U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land rejected that in a ruling on Aug. 17, 2016.
Tollette then appealed Land’s ruling to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld Land’s ruling on May 29, 2020, and refused to rehear the case on Aug. 11, 2020.
Tollette sought a U.S. Supreme Court review of the 11th Circuit decision this past Jan. 8.
This story was originally published April 29, 2021 at 10:06 AM.