Judge rules confession against prison inmate in fatal stabbing of corrections guard at Tomoka was not coerced and therefore legit

Courtesy photos. Corrections officer Donna Fitzgerald was murdered by an inmate at Tomoka prison -- stabbed 25 times on June 25 while she was working alone in a section of the prison with 13 inmates. Enoch Hall, a lifer, was charged with capital murder and faces the death penalty, if convicted at trial.

DAYTONA BEACH -- A judge ruled Friday there was insufficient evidence to support an inmate's claim at Tomoka Correctional Institute that he was beaten and coerced into confessing to killing a corrections officer.

The ruling by Circuit Judge J. David Walsh paves the way for next month's first-degree muurder trial against 40-year-old Enoch Hall, who is already serving a life sentence for rape.

Hall is accused of stabbing to death corrections officer Donna Fitzgerald in an isolated area of the prison on June 25, 2008. Hall could receive a death sentence if convicted at trial since he is charged with a capital offense.

Hall's attorneys tried in vain to have his statements to police suppressed on the basis they were coerced. The judge has yet to rule on a second request by Hall's attorney to have the trial moved out of Daytona Beach and Volusia County because of pre-trial publicity.