Lionel Tate was twelve years old living in Florida when he would murder six year old Tiffany Eunick
According to court documents Lionel Tate was suppose to be babysitting Tiffany Eunick while his mother slept upstairs. According to Lionel the two would begin wrestling and soon after Tiffany Eunick was not breathing. He would run upstairs to tell his mother.
Lionel Tate mother would call 911 and soon an ambulance would arrive. Tiffany Eunich would be rushed to the hospital however she was soon declared dead
An autopsy on Tiffany Eunick would reveal injuries that resembled a high speed car crash. Tiffany had bruises all over her body plus a fractured skull, lacerated liver, fractured rib, and swollen brain
Lionel Tate would be arrested and charged with murder. Before his trial began prosecutors offered a plea deal which he and his mother turned down. Lionel would be sentenced to life in prison becoming the youngest person in American history to receive such a sentence
Eventually Lionel Tate would end up back in court and his first sentence was thrown out and he accepted a plea deal that saw him released from prison
However a year after his release Lionel would be back in the news as he was charged with the armed robbery of a pizza delivery person. Since he was still on probation for Tiffany Eunich murder Tate would be sentenced to thirty years in prison for the probation violation and ten additional years for the robbery
Lionel Tate Current Information
| DC Number: | L24475 |
|---|---|
| Name: | TATE, LIONEL |
| Race: | BLACK |
| Sex: | MALE |
| Birth Date: | 01/30/1988 |
| Initial Receipt Date: | 06/06/2006 |
| Current Facility: | SANTA ROSA C.I. |
| Current Custody: | CLOSE |
| Current Release Date: | 05/17/2030 |
Lionel Tate Case
Lionel Tate, who was sentenced to life in prison five years ago for stomping a playmate to death when he was 12, was told by a judge that he was out of chances and sentenced on Thursday to 30 years in prison for violating his probation. He could again face life in prison for robbing a pizza deliveryman at gunpoint.
Mr. Tate, now 19, pleaded guilty in March to violating his probation and robbing the deliveryman in a deal that would have sent him to prison for a maximum of 30 years for both charges. But he later asked Judge Joel T. Lazarus of Broward County Circuit Court to withdraw that plea.
On Thursday, the judge rejected Mr. Tate’s request to withdraw his plea for the probation violation and sentenced him on that charge. The judge did, however, accept Mr. Tate’s plea withdrawal for the armed robbery charge and set that case for trial on Sept. 18.
If convicted of that charge, Mr. Tate could again be sentenced to life.
Mr. Tate’s lawyer, H. Dohn Williams, appointed by the court after Mr. Tate’s last lawyer dropped the case citing irreconcilable differences with his client, said Mr. Tate withdrew the guilty plea against his recommendation. “He continues to get bad advice from meddling third parties,” Mr. Williams said.
Mr. Tate was convicted of first-degree murder in 2001 for killing a 6-year-old playmate, Tiffany Eunick, in July 1999.
He was sentenced to life in prison without parole, but an appeals court found his mental competency should have been evaluated before the trial and reversed his conviction in late 2003. In January 2004, he was freed and, to avoid retrial, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for one year’s house arrest followed by 10 years’ probation.
While on house arrest, he was arrested when the police said they found him away from his home at 2 a.m. carrying an eight-inch knife. Judge Lazarus then added five years to the probation. But in May 2005, Mr. Tate was arrested on the armed robbery charge in Broward County.
“In plain English, Lionel Tate, you’ve run out of chances,” Judge Lazarus said during Thursday’s hearing. “You do not get any more.”
