Lancelot Armstrong

Broward jury backs death sentence for killer in deputy's 1990 slaying

By Tonya Alanez
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted April 26 2007

Two juries, 17 years apart.

Both recommended 9-3 that Lancelot Armstrong should die for the February 1990 slaying of Broward Sheriff's Deputy John "Jack" Greeney.

The Florida Supreme Court threw out Armstrong's first death sentence in 2003.

On Wednesday, before a courtroom packed with deputies, Sheriff Ken Jenne, prosecutors, and the families of Greeney and Armstrong, a new panel of Broward jurors once again recommended execution.

Greeney's only sibling, Patty Hubrig, heard the jury's decision, gasped, and threw her hands to her face as she broke into tears. The sheriff hugged her.

Armstrong, his mother and a cousin, sat resolute.

Hubrig said she felt vindicated and relieved.

"I watched my father die, I've watched my mother die, all just focused on Jackie," Hubrig, 60, of Boca Raton, said later in the hallway. "I was afraid that after 17 years, it wouldn't be as important to [the jurors] as it was to us."

Greeney and Deputy Robert Sallustio were gunned down at a Church's Fried Chicken while investigating a silent alarm at the fast-food restaurant on West Broward Boulevard.

Sallustio survived. Greeney, 47, of Cooper City, did not. He was shot four times at close range.

Armstrong's accomplice, Wayne Coleman, 37, is serving life terms for the murder, attempted murder and robbery.

Armstrong, a 43-year-old father of five, is serving two life sentences for Sallustio's shooting.

His first death sentence was overturned because jurors had heard testimony about a 1985 Massachusetts conviction for indecent assault and battery on a teen girl. That conviction was later overturned, nullifying its use as evidence against him.

Defense attorney David Rowe said Armstrong was a "minor participant" in the shooting, and execution was an overly severe punishment.

"It was a shootout in which there may have been errors of police judgment or even friendly fire," he said. "If a police officer dies, there seems to be a huge rush to judgment to have the perpetrators executed no matter what."

In a prepared statement, Broward State Attorney Mike Satz commended the jury's decision, saying it was an "appropriate punishment" for "a terribly violent and most senseless murder."

Armstrong's mother, Dorett English, of Atlanta, said she sympathized with Greeney's family but had hoped jurors would have mercy on her son.

"He surely was not the shooter," she said. "He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. There was no malice or forethought."

Broward Circuit Judge Michael Gates will set a sentencing date later.


Taken from the Sun Sentinel Newspaper.

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