*

In January 1986, Bill Duane joined a large law firm in Orlando and began phasing out his representation of Zeigler.  A state-financed group of attorneys specializing in capital appeals was to take over the case.  Zeigler's second appeal—known as a habeas corpus or "3.850" petition—was still working its way through the system.  It was based on another set of collateral matters, including the argument that in restricting character witnesses during the penalty phase of the trial, Judge Paul had failed to consider possible mitigating circumstances.

That spring, a U.S. district judge, Susan Black, declared that Zeigler and his attorneys had improperly filed his habeas petition. This cleared the way for an unexpected second warrant.  Zeigler was scheduled to die on Tuesday morning, May 20, 1986.

This was grave.  As far as Zeigler and his attorneys were aware, nobody had ever come back alive from the Death House after being found in procedural default.

Another condemned man was in the Death House at the same time. Ronald "Frog" Straight was a convicted murderer and a Death Row friend of Zeigler's who had run out of appeals.  Both he and Zeigler knew that Straight's cause was lost, but neither admitted it.

Zeigler's time, too, got short.  On Sunday, May 18, he wrote a series of good-byes and thank-you letters.  He asked that his files and his collection of the official record be shipped out to his mother's home, along with all of his personal possessions; he didn't want her to have to deal with it after he was gone.

Vernon Davids had recently returned to work after multiple-bypass heart surgery.  Although he had not been Zeigler's principal counsel since 1981, he had remained an attorney of record and had stayed current with the case.  He knew that Zeigler still had favorable issues on his habeas petition.

With about thirty-six hours remaining before the execution, Davids finished a motion for a stay of execution, based on the last possible, and least desirable, grounds: Davids averred that his own representation of Zeigler had been incompetent and that Zeigler's newest attorneys had failed to file a timely appeal.

In the meantime, Leslie Gift and Tommy's cousin Connie Crawford made preliminary arrangements for a mortician to recover the body after the execution.

Insufficiency of counsel was the one issue that would earn a stay. After the U.S. district court denied the motion, a judge of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta granted the stay.  Zeigler learned of it when a guard summoned him to a telephone to take a call from Vernon Davids; at the time, Zeigler was in the visitor park with his mother, Connie Crawford, and Davids's ex-wife, Pat.