NATIONAL STORY

The little boy's disappearance and murder made national news and prompted the state Legislature to pass a law enabling judges to lock up sex offenders after they had served their sentence if the court deemed them likely to repeat the crime.

Ryce was kidnapped Sept. 11, 1995, moments after a school bus dropped him off near his Redland home.

Hundreds searched for him, then mourned three months later when his dismembered remains were found sealed in cement-filled pots behind Chavez's home.

Police arrested Chavez after his employer found the child's book bag in a trailer where Chavez was living.

Chavez confessed to kidnapping the boy at gunpoint, raping him, then shooting him when he tried to escape.

Chavez later retracted the confession. He testified during his 1998 trial -- which was moved to Orlando because of pretrial publicity -- that his employer's son was the killer.

Chavez also said he had been afraid to report the crime because he was a counterrevolutionary in Cuba and feared for his life if he were deported.

On Tuesday, Koch claimed that Brummer told him not to send investigators to check out information Chavez gave him that might support his claims of innocence. Koch also said that Brummer told him not to take depositions, then insisted he take only 30-minute depositions.

'I remember him saying to me in his office, `I don't want to pick up The Miami Herald and read where lawyers representing Chavez are keeping detectives off the street investigating crime,' '' Koch said.

Koch acknowledged that he took depositions and did not limit them to 30 minutes. He said he ultimately sent out investigators. Koch didn't raise the allegations until he left the public defender's office in 2004 -- years after Chavez was arrested.

Back then, in the middle of a bitterly contested race for reelection, Brummer said he had been forced to discipline Koch in 2003 for acting disrespectfully to staff members.

POINTING FINGERS

Another attorney, Assistant Public Defender Stephen Harper, testified Tuesday that Brummer never interfered in the case. He said Koch prevented him from properly preparing for the penalty phase of Chavez's trial.

Koch accused Harper and yet another assistant public defender, Edith Georgi, of lying and claimed they were willing to let Chavez commit perjury to try to save him from the death penalty.

''There's going to be a lot of finger-pointing among all the attorneys,'' said Chavez's post-conviction attorney, Bob Norgard, during a break in the hearing.

Georgi and Assistant Public Defender Andrew Stanton were expected to testify today.

Norgard also is arguing that Chavez didn't understand the U.S. legal system when he confessed and, therefore, the confession should be thrown out, along with any evidence police obtained because of information Chavez told them.

Norgard also said Chavez's mother had tried to abort him and he was forced to prostitute himself as a child.

The hearing is expected to continue today and Thursday, and the attorneys and Judge Schumacher may have to reconvene next week to hear from an expert who is out of the country.

Jimmy's mother said she will be there every day.

''I'm here today because Jimmy had rights, too,'' Claudine Ryce said. ``He had a right to live, the right to grow up unmolested. I don't want people to forget that this is about Jimmy.''