Is This Justice...Or Was It Something Else?

The chart depicts the relationship of each of the principals in the Zeigler case over a period of thrirty-three years.

1. Circuit Court Judge Paul testified against Tommy's Friend, Andrew James, four months before the cime. The code of conduct for judges prohibits this. (He was a character witness for prosecution.)

2. Bob Eagan was the prosecutor of Mr. James. He lost when the presiding judge withheld adjudication. This was an embarrassment to both Paul and Eagan.

3. Tommy Zeigler, who knew  that loan sharks were trying to take over Mr. James bar,  testified for Andrew James and got the Winter Garden mayor and the police chief to testify also.

4. Four months later Tommy was arrested for murder by Sheriff Mel Colman. Prosecutor, Bob Eagan ordered the sheriff not to investigate the loan shark motive for the crime.

5. Judge Paul and State Attorney Eagan held an ex parte conference just before the trial according to a participant. Paul said he would "fry him."

6. During the trial, Eagan hid evidence from the defense (found after the statute of limitations had expired) and lied about the blood. He claimed it came from Tommy's father in law when he knew that Charlie Mays and the father in law had the same blood type and Eagan had not even sub-typed it.

7. Judge Paul refused to recuse himself and overruled the jury which recommended life in prison.

8. During DNA hearing before Judge Whitehead in 2003, the state attorney's office (now Eagan protege, Lawson Lamar) claimed that May's blood got on Tommy's shirt while Tommy was performing a sex act on Mays' dead body. Another lie since this was merely inflamatory conjecture designed to destroy Tommy's reputation.

9. In 2007 Supreme Court Justice, Charles Wells, ruled against Zeigler in the DNA appeal despite the fact that he had personal knowledge of the case from having been an advisor to Sheriff Mel Colman when Tommy was arrested. The code of conduct for judges prohibits this.