The son of a Coral Gables cop killed by Death Row inmate Manuel Valle says he's skeptical that Valle's execution will actually take place, despite Governor Rick Scott signing the man's death warrant -- the governor's first -- on Thursday night.
"Valle figured out how to beat the system and stay alive," said Louis Paul Pena, who was 19 when his father Luis Pena was gunned down in April of 1978.
"Appeal after appeal after stupid appeal, 33 years for killing a cop in cold blood. It wasn't a shootout, my dad didn't have a chance to defend himself. Why is this man still alive after 33 years? No one can give me a straight answer."
Valle is set to be executed by lethal injection on Aug. 2 at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison in Starke.
He confessed to shooting Luis Pena in the neck during a routine traffic stop, and was quickly convicted and sentenced to death.
When the original conviction was overturned, he was re-tried and convicted again. Death warrants were signed. But the wheels of justice, as the saying goes, turned slowly.
"He's outlasted my entire law enforcement career -- and that's 30-something years -- living on death row," said Gary Spell, the recently retired Coral Gables Police officer who was also shot by Valle.
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Officer Pena pulled Valle over on LeJeune Road and Almeria Street in April 1978. Though Valle was driving a stolen Camaro, the car didn't register as stolen when Pena called it in to dispatch.
Pena would most likely have let Valle go with a ticket, but Valle, reportedly fearing a trip to prison, pulled a gun and shot Pena in the neck at point-blank range.
On the police dispatch call, Pena can be heard saying "I'm shot" three times, along with the frenzied barking of his K-9 dog in the back seat.
"I was probably 10 feet away and watched him murder Officer Pena," Spell recalled, standing in front of a memorial to officers killed in the line of duty, a picture of Pena on the wall over his shoulder.
Having been called to the scene for backup, Spell saw everything from his car. Valle turned and shot him, too, but Spell's bullet-proof vest saved his life.
Spell returned fire, but Valle got away. He was arrested in Deerfield Beach a few days later.
Pena left behind four children whose lives were upended and forever changed by the violence so many years ago.
"I'm definitely going to be there as a witness because the hell that I've gone through, I need closure on this," said Louis Paul Pena. "It's not over until I see a flat line."
