Response to latest death row exoneration

Below are the latest action requests from FADP.
If you have any questions, please e-mail fadp@fadp.org

Another man is free from Florida's death row.
Juan Melendez walked out of Union Correctional Institution at 8pm on January 3, 2002.

FADP asks you to take THREE ACTIONS TODAY:

#1 -	Call the State News Editor of your local newspaper
#2 -	Write a letter to the editor
#3 -	Write a brief, hand written letter to the Governor

GO TO NEWS ROUNDUP SECTION

ACTION #1

Please call the news room of your local newspaper. Ask to speak with the editor who covers STATE news. Ask that person if they are aware that the 24th innocent prisoner was released from death row yesterday, and then ask them to please cover the story. We have no details, but we expect a press conference in Tallahassee today - the story should be on the wires if the paper's Tallahassee reporter is unable to make it.

ACTION #1 - part two

Similar to Action #1 - call the assignment desk of your local television stations with news programs.

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ACTION #2

Write a brief letter to the editor, making one to three of the following points:

  On January 3, 2002, Juan Melendez was released after serving more than 17 years on Florida's death row for a crime he did not commit, making him the 24th prisoner to be exonerated and released from a death sentence in Florida since 1972. Florida leads the nation in wrongful convictions.

  Urge an immediate halt to all executions in Florida, including the three scheduled for later this month and early in February.

  Amos King is scheduled to be executed on January 24, 2002 for his alleged murder of Natalie Brady. Mr. King has always maintained his innocence, yet has never had all of the evidence fully evaluated. The evidence that could have been tested for DNA was destroyed before it could be tested.

  Urge Governor Jeb Bush to declare an immediate moratorium on executions.

  Urge Floridians to educate themselves about this issue by visiting the Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty web page at <www.FADP.org> or by calling 800-973-6548.

  Urge accountability and responsibility on the part of public officials. In the Melendez case, the prosecutor lied to the jury, misleading them about the credibility of his witnesses in order to secure a conviction and death sentence. Such behavior should never be tolerated. When prosecutors knowingly send the wrong person to prison, they leave the real murderer free to hurt more innocent people. This is criminal!

Please e-mail a copy of your letter to <fadp@fadp.org>. If/when your letter is printed, please send an original news clipping to FADP.

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ACTION #3

Write a simple, hand written note to Governor Jeb Bush expressing concern about the number of death row exonerations in Florida, and urging an immediate moratorium on executions, including the three upcoming executions.  The address is:

Governor Jeb Bush
The Capitol
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0001
Telephone: (850) 488-4441 or
FAX (850) 487-0801
E-mail: fl_governor@eog.state.fl.us
Alternate e-mail: Jebbush@jeb.org

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Thanks!

--abe

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NEWS ROUNDUP
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Articles:

  Lakeland Ledger - January 4, 2002
  Miami Herald - January 4, 2002
  South Florida Sun-Sentinel - January 4, 2002
  St. Petersburg Times - January 4, 2002
  Gainesville Sun - January 5, 2002
  Lakeland Ledger - January 5, 2002
  Miami Herald - January 5, 2002
  St. Petersburg Times - January 5, 2002
  Tallahassee Democrat - January 5, 2002
  Washington Post editorial - January 5, 2002
  Gainesville Sun Editorial - January 6, 2002
  Tampa Tribune - January 7, 2002
  Daytona BeachNews - January 8, 2002
  Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel Editorial - January 9, 2002
  Palm Beach Post Editorial - January 9, 2002
  Orlando Sentinel - January 10, 2002
  Palm Beach Post - January 10, 2002
  Palm Beach Post - January 13, 2002
  Orlando Sentinel - January 27, 2002

Death Row Inmate Released
Prosecutors say they don't have enough evidence to warrant a new trial for
Juan Roberto Melendez.
Friday, January 4, 2002
By JULIA FERRANTE
The Ledger

TAMPA -- The day Juan Roberto Melendez was sentenced to death by the electric chair, he pledged he would be released from prison one day. "I'm still alive. I'm going to make it. By Jesus, I'll get out one day," the former migrant worker said as he was escorted from the courtroom by bailiffs, Ledger reports of the 1984 trial said. Seventeen years later, Melendez's predictions came true. Melendez, 50, who has spent 17 years on death row for a slaying to which another man had repeatedly confessed walked out of prison a free man Thursday night. "They can give me a billion dollars and they cannot pay for what they did to me," Juan Melendez told reporters in the parking lot minutes after being released from Union Correctional Institution. He was freed hours after prosecutors in Polk County decided not to try him again for the slaying of Auburndale cosmetology school owner Delbert "Mr. Del" Baker. During his years on death row, Melendez said, he never despaired. "I'm innocent. I should not die here. I should not spend the rest of my life in prison," he said. "Without hope, I probably would have committed suicide." Melendez said that after heading to Tallahassee for a news conference this morning he planned to return to his native Puerto Rico and live with his 73-year-old mother. He said he has not decided whether or not to sue. Melendez had lost several appeals and had his death sentence upheld by the Florida Supreme Court until the transcript of another man's confession to the crime was discovered in 1999. Circuit Judge Roger Alcott, who as an attorney represented Melendez, found the original transcript of the confession, which ultimately led the Tampa court to overturn the conviction. Alcott declined to comment on the case Thursday. But other defense attorneys said the true killer, the late Vernon James, confessed to at least four investigators or attorneys, but none of those statements were ever admitted into court. No physical evidence linked Melendez to the crime. "I'm happy to finally have it over and to have Juan released," said attorney Marty McClain, who pursued his appeal. "But it really is a sad day that the system allowed this to happen and for it to go on so long." Melendez, who has maintained his innocence, was granted a new trial in December, but the Polk County State Attorney's Office will not take the case back before a jury because one of the only two witnesses against Melendez has recanted and the other is dead, said Chip Thullbery, administrative assistant state attorney. "The fact that we did not appeal does not mean we agree with everything the judge said," Thullbery said. "We do not believe in good faith that we now have the evidence to go forward." Hillsborough Circuit Judge Barbara Fleischer criticized Polk prosecutors for withholding police reports, notes and interviews with a witness who said James was involved in the 1983 death of Baker. Baker was found shot to death and his throat was slashed at his Auburndale business, Mr. Del's Beauty School. Prosecutors offered no apologies for the way Assistant State Attorney Hardy Pickard and others handled the case in 1986. "The judge made a judgment some 17 years later that Hardy should have turned over some things that he thinks should not have been turned over," Thullbery said. "Hardy Pickard is an honorable prosecutor. He would not intentionally have held back something if he thought someone was not guilty." Thullbery said Pickard believed the evidence, which included notes and transcripts of interviews with Vernon James, did not show that Melendez was innocent of the crime. Thullbery said James had told several people and defense attorneys were aware of his alleged involvement. "One of the investigators went out and took a statement from Vernon James, who said he was somehow involved," Thullbery said. "The office still believes Mr. Melendez is guilty, but we are not going forward because we simply do not have the evidence to do so." Pickard declined to comment. Melendez was arrested near Harrisburg, Pa., a year after Auburndale police began investigating the crime. The state initially charged John Arthur Berrien, a former Lakeland city employee, with murder and robbery after he told investigators he drove two men to Baker's beauty school the day Baker was murdered and robbed of $10,000 worth of jewelry he customarily wore. The State Attorney's office offered Berrien a deal in exchange for his testimony against Melendez, and Berrien pleaded no contest to the lesser charge of being an accessory after the fact. He testified that he drove Melendez and another man to the beauty shop, but did not know what they were doing. Berrien later recanted his story. "You have a lot of people looking back over a lot of different years and you have somebody in prison who decided to recant his testimony," said Thullbery, who was not involved in the original prosecution. "We can't try the case now, but it certainly was a case that needed to be tried then." Melendez said after his trial in September 1984 that he would rather die in the electric chair than spend the rest of his life -- or the minimum 25 years required at the time -- in prison, Ledger reports said. "If I get the death penalty, I feel I can get more publicity and I can fight my case, and I can get a speedy appeal," Melendez told reporters at the time. Prosecutors did not know how long it would take for Melendez to be freed. He is currently being held at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford. The Department of Corrections said Melendez would likely be released in days, after it receives notification from Polk County. Melendez is the 99th U.S. death row freed after being cleared by new evidence, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Project in Washington. Dieter said inmates are being released more frequently in the last decade -- roughly a half-dozen inmates each year -- due to newly discovered evidence or DNA testing which many states now allow in appeals. In Melendez's case, it took the discovery of a transcript detailing a conversation between Alcott, the defense attorney, and Vernon James, who was considered as a possible suspect early in the case. One of Baker's friends told police he believed James had been at the shop shortly before the slaying, but police abandoned the lead when James denied it. Before the trial, Alcott obtained a taped statement from James, who admitted to being there when Baker was killed. James made the same admission to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent and a state attorney's investigator, but those admissions were not disclosed to the defense. James was called as a witness, but invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Four witnesses testified Melendez was elsewhere the evening of the killing. Jurors weren't told of the checkered pasts of the men who testified against Melendez, including an inmate who said Melendez confessed the killing to him. James was murdered in 1986; his killer served five years for manslaughter. The Florida Supreme Court upheld Melendez's death sentence, although in a 1986 opinion then Justice Rosemary Barkett said after reviewing the evidence against Melendez that she feared an innocent man would be killed. In 1999 McClain was working on a federal appeal of Melendez's case and contacted Alcott, the original defense attorney. The judge had recently found the original transcript of his interview with James. It proved to be enough evidence to win Melendez a new trial.
Julia Ferrante can be reached at julia.ferrante@theledger.com or 863-802-7524.
Information from The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Published Friday, January 4, 2002
Inmate on Death Row goes free after 17 years
Discovery of old transcript was crucial
BY PHIL LONG AND AMY DRISCOLL
adriscoll@herald.com

RAIFORD -- A chance discovery two years ago of an old legal transcript in a lawyer's files led to freedom Thursday for Juan Melendez -- 17 years after he was sent to Florida's Death Row for a murder another man claimed to have committed. Polk County prosecutors effectively set Melendez free when they announced Thursday that they do not have sufficient evidence to re-try him for the 1983 slaying of a Central Florida beauty school owner. The official release came hours later, when Melendez walked out of Union Correctional Institution in Raiford with a new set of clothes, compliments of the state. His team of lawyers and their investigator, all from the state's Capital Collateral Office that handles death-penalty appeals, rushed by car from Tallahassee to pick him up at the prison gates. ``I tell you, I feel great,'' the former migrant worker said with a non-stop grin, as he stood outside the prison, his attorneys at his side. He hadn't learned of his impending release until mid-afternoon, he said, when a prison officer broke the news. ``I was in a state of shock,'' Melendez said. He insisted he does not feel anger toward the legal system. ``If I would get bitter, all I would do is torment myself,'' Melendez said, clutching a windbreaker against the cold night air. ``They could give me a billion dollars and that would not pay for what they did to me.'' His lawyers said justice came late for Melendez. ``I'm happy to finally have it over and to have Juan released,'' said attorney Marty McClain, who pursued the appeal. ``But it really is a sad day that the system allowed this to happen and for it to go on so long.'' Melendez, 50, was sentenced to death in 1984 for the murder of Delbert ``Mr. Del'' Baker in his Auburndale beauty salon. Melendez lost several rounds of appeals and his death sentence was upheld. He was nearing the end of his appeals when his former defense lawyer, Roger Alcott, discovered a key transcript as he moved old boxes of files following his appointment as a Polk County circuit judge in early 2000. The transcript details a conversation taped about a month before Melendez's trial. On the tape, Vernon James, a now-deceased witness in the case, admitted being involved in the murder and said that Melendez was not at the scene. Alcott has said he attempted to use the information at trial but was legally blocked from doing so after James, taking the Fifth Amendment on the witness stand, refused to testify. Alcott refused to comment Thursday.

CONFESSION ALLEGED
Transcript in hand, Melendez's appellate lawyers continued to investigate, finding that James, once a suspect in the murder, had told up to 20 other people -- including a former law enforcement officer -- of his involvement in the murder. Some said he had confessed to the killing. Armed with new evidence, the lawyers returned to state court to appeal Melendez's conviction. An evidentiary hearing was held, and on Dec. 6, Circuit Judge Barbara Fleischer in Tampa ruled that Melendez was entitled to a new trial. She found that the trial prosecutor, Hardy Pickard, had failed to disclosed potentially damaging information to the defense, including serious inconsistencies in statements by John Berrien, one of two major state witnesses. Additionally, the judge said Pickard misled the jury about testimony from the other main state witness, David Luna Falcon, by telling jurors that Falcon had ``nothing to gain'' from testifying. But Falcon, who testified at trial that Melendez had confessed, had struck a deal with prosecutors to reduce his own prison time in exchange for testimony. No physical evidence ever connected Melendez to the murder, Fleischer noted. ``Rather, his conviction and sentence of death hinged on the jury's and the judge's belief of John Berrien and David Luna Falcon,'' she wrote.

NEW EVIDENCE
The new evidence, along with Pickard's withholding of information, ``combine to undermine the confidence in the outcome of the defendant's original trial,'' she concluded. Pickard had similar involvement in another Death Row case currently under federal court review. In 1984, he prosecuted Bill Kelley for the 1966 murder of Charles Von Maxcy of Sebring. Kelley's appellate lawyers have argued that Pickard withheld information from the jury that showed a witness had been offered immunity in exchange for testimony. After the judge's ruling in the Melendez case, the Polk County State Attorney's Office faced the prospect of re-trying a 19-year-old case in which one key witness, Berrien, had recanted and the other, Falcon, was now dead.

PROSECUTION OVER
Thursday, prosecutors filed notice they would not pursue the case. ``We believe that the evidence was there at the time we prosecuted him,'' said Chip Thullbery, administrative assistant state attorney in Polk County. ``After all these years, though, we are left with nothing to proceed on.'' Melendez is the 99th Death Row inmate freed in the United States by new evidence, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Project in Washington. He said inmates were released more frequently in the past decade -- roughly a half-dozen each year -- due to newly discovered evidence or newly allowed DNA testing. Last year, Jerry Frank Townsend, who is mentally disabled, was released from prison after DNA tests linked another man to some killings in Fort Lauderdale to which Townsend had confessed.

PUERTO RICO
In his first days of freedom, Melendez, who has no relatives in Florida, will probably go visit his 73-year-old mother in Puerto Rico, he said. ``I'm going to go home to look after my momma,'' he told reporters Thursday night. ``She's 73 years old. She's all alone. I just want to spend time with her.'' This report was supplemented with information from the Associated Press.

Inmate to be released after 17 years on Death Row
By Vickie Chachere
The Associated Press
January 4, 2002

TAMPA · A man who has spent 17 years on Death Row for a slaying to which another man had repeatedly confessed will go free because prosecutors say they don't have enough evidence to proceed with a court-ordered retrial. Prosecutors decided Thursday not to retry Juan Melendez, who was convicted on witness testimony for the 1983 killing of Delbert Baker, a cosmetology school owner. No physical evidence linked Melendez to the slaying. Melendez, 50, lost several rounds of appeals and had his death sentence upheld by the Florida Supreme Court until the transcript of the other man's confession to the Polk County slaying was discovered in 1999. Defense attorneys said the true killer, a now-deceased man named Vernon James, confessed to at least four investigators or attorneys, but none of those admissions was admitted in court. The 1999 transcript was a taped statement from James who admitted to Melendez's original attorney that he was there when Baker was killed. "I'm happy to finally have it over and to have Juan released," said Marty McClain, the attorney who pursued his appeal. "But it really is a sad day that the system allowed this to happen and for it to go on so long." Melendez was granted a new trial in December, but the Polk County State Attorney's Office will not take the case back to a jury because one of the only two witnesses against Melendez has recanted and the other is now dead, said Chip Thullbery, administrative assistant state attorney. "That leaves us, frankly, with nothing to proceed on," Thullbery said. Prosecutors, though, offered no apologies for the way the case was handled in 1986. "You have a lot of people looking back over a lot of different years and you have somebody in prison who decided to recant his testimony," said Thullbery, who was not involved in the original prosecution. "We can't try the case now, but it certainly was a case that needed to be tried then." Melendez is being held at Union Correctional Institution. The Department of Corrections said he would likely be released in days.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/search/
sfl-fappeal04jan04.story

Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

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After 18 years, death row inmate wins his freedom After a judge grants a new trial in the Polk slaying, prosecutors say they lack sufficient evidence and drop the case.

By DAVID KARP, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 4, 2002

After a judge grants a new trial in the Polk slaying, prosecutors say they lack sufficient evidence and drop the case.

For the 24th time in Florida's history, a wrongfully convicted killer who spent years on death row has been set free.

Juan Roberto Melendez walked out of the Union Correctional Institution around 8 p.m. on Thursday after serving nearly 18 years for a murder he says he did not commit.

He carried $100 in his hand and wore clothes issued by the state Department of Corrections.

"He was smiling," his attorney, Martin McClain said. "It was a broad smile."

A carload of Melendez's attorneys waited at the gate to drive him to Tallahassee, where he planned to spend the night. They brought him a collected wardrobe of polo shirts, Dockers pants and a jacket.

He plans a press conference today and hopes later to fly to Puerto Rico to visit his 73-year-old mother.

Death penalty opponents called on Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday to immediately suspend the death penalty, pointing to Melendez's case as an example of how the state could have killed an innocent man.

"There are too many mistakes being uncovered to have much confidence in the way the system is working," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.

Since Florida reinstated the death penalty, 24 death row inmates have gone free. The state has put 51 convicted killers to death.

"That is a terrible record," said Dieter. "I think it would cause the state to say, why is this happening?"

Chip Thullbery, spokesman for the state attorney in Polk County who prosecuted Melendez, rejected the criticism.

"The process from their point of view worked because Mr. Melendez was released," Thullbery said.

Prosecutors do not think Melendez is actually innocent, he said.

They just don't have enough evidence to convict Melendez after Hillsborough Judge Barbara Fleischer threw out Melendez's 1984 conviction last month. One of the state's key witnesses against Melendez has died; the other recanted his testimony.

In 1984 a jury convicted Melendez, then 33, of killing Delbart Baker and leaving him on the floor of his beauty school in Auburndale. Police found his throat slashed and his head and shoulders shot.

A convicted felon testified that Melendez admitted to the crime. Another witness with a grudge against Melendez also put him at the scene.

A jury sentenced Melendez to die, and in 1986 the Florida Supreme Court upheld the conviction and death sentence.

In a little-noticed opinion, Justice Rosemary Barkett raised doubts about the evidence.

"There are cases, albeit not many, when a review of the evidence in the record leaves one with the fear that an execution would perhaps be terminating the life of an innocent person," Barkett wrote.

Melendez lost another round of appeals in the mid 1990s, but then he got a break.

Linda McDermott, a young death penalty attorney with the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, and McClain, a litigator who travels around the state handling death cases, took an interest in Melendez's case. They requested all the old records.

The original investigator, who had moved to Pennsylvania, flew to Florida to dig up his old files. Visiting Lakeland, he went to lunch with Melendez's first attorney, who now was a judge in Polk County.

When he closed his law practice, the judge remembered seeing old notes in the case. The notes might be interesting, he said.

They included a transcript of a taped statement from a man named Vernon James, who admitted committing the murder.

"When we found it, we were shocked," McDermott said.

In the 1990s, witnesses had testified that James confessed to the murder. But a judge reviewing the case didn't believe it. Now the defense had the extra evidence.

"When we saw the taped statement, it was almost too good to be true," McDermott said. "It was just incredible luck in stumbling onto that statement." Defense lawyers also discovered that prosecutor Hardy Pickard knew about James' confession too. James made an incriminating statement to the state's investigator, but the prosecutor never disclosed this to the defense.

The case then got transferred to Tampa, since no Polk County judges would review the case. After months of work, Circuit Judge Barbara Fleischer issued a 70-page opinion in December granting Melendez a new trial. She blasted the prosecutor for withholding evidence.

His boss defended him Thursday, even as they dropped the case.

"Hardy is an honorable prosecutor," Thullbery said. "If he made some legal mistakes -- and I am not saying he did -- they certainly were not with the intent of rendering an injustice."

Times staff writer David Karp can be contacted at (813) 226-3376 or karp@sptimes.com.

Published Saturday, January 5, 2002

Saturday, January 5, 2002
Inmate wants his life back
By GARY FINEOUT
Sun Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE - Juan Roberto Melendez wants to spend his first few days of freedom doing some very simple things: Looking at the stars, maybe eating some food from a fast-food restaurant and going to live with his elderly mother in Puerto Rico.

The 50-year-old Melendez, who was freed Thursday after spending 17 years on Florida's death row, said he didn't want to be ''negative'' and talk about how he was treated in prison or how he felt about the Polk County prosecutors who charged him with murder.

''It's a happy day for me now,'' Melendez said. ''I'm just glad to be out and glad that I can make it back home and take care of my mama. Let's talk about good things. I want to see the stars and the moon.''

But Melendez - whose newly found freedom adds to the ongoing criticism of the death penalty - reasserted that he was innocent of the 1983 slaying of Auburndale cosmetology school owner Delbert ''Mr. Del'' Baker. The one-time fruit picker, who was arrested at an orchard in Pennsylvania months after the murder, said he did not know the victim and never set foot in Auburndale.

And if he is innocent, reasoned Melendez, and his attorneys, others on Florida's Death Row may be as well.

''There's a lot of innocent men on death row nationwide,'' said Melendez, who as of midday Friday said he had not slept since the night before when he was released from Union Correctional Institution. ''If you find one, you will find 20, 30, 40, maybe hundreds.'' Melendez was freed Thursday after prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to convict him in a new trial. After years of losing appeals, Melendez's 1984 conviction was thrown out after a transcript of another man's confession to the crime was discovered in 1999.

Prosecutors continue to maintain that Melendez was guilty, as did the foreman who served on the jury at the time.

''He's lucky he's free, because he's guilty in my opinion,'' said Jim Lear, a former Winter Haven city commissioner.

Lear said he believed the testimony of an inmate, David Luna Falcon. Falcon testified that Melendez told him he slit Baker's throat and then shot him in the back of the head after Baker begged for his life. Falcon is now dead, and another witness who also testified that he drove Melendez to the beauty shop later, recanted his testimony.

But a Hillsborough County circuit judge last month granted a new trial to Melendez and criticized prosecutors for withholding police reports, notes and interviews with a witness who said another man was involved in Baker's death. Lear, however, said if there was other evidence that did not come to light at the original trial it was the fault of the judge.

''The judge knows 10 times more than the jury will ever know, and that's always the case,'' Lear said. ''The judge had a choice. He didn't have to go with the jury's recommendation.''

But the release of Melendez marks the 22nd time since the death penalty was reinstated in the late 1970s that someone sentenced to death has been freed in Florida, said Martin McLain, a lawyer who specializes in handling death penalty cases.

McLain and other anti-death-penalty advocates said the case shows why Florida should institute a moratorium on the death penalty. In late 2000, DNA evidence exonerated Frank Lee Smith nearly 11 months after he had died of cancer on Death Row.

But a spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush - who has tried to speed up the rate of executions in Florida - rejected the suggestion.

''We will not be calling for a moratorium,'' Katie Baur said. ''There's no proof that this man was wrongfully convicted. He had access to multiple levels of appeals and at every level he was found guilty. Floridians have spoken out on this issue and overwhelmingly support capital punishment when violent murders are committed against innocent people.''

Melendez, a Brooklyn native who was 33 at the time of his conviction and now has traces of silver in his hair, said he believes that the death penalty is ''immoral.'' He said the isolation and loneliness of living on Death Row could bear down on someone unless they have faith in something bigger.

''They really don't have to kill you, they are killing you inside already,'' Melendez said.

He said he survived because of his belief in Christianity and by keeping himself busy, such as learning how to read and write in English. Melendez said he tried to stay informed about the outside world - but McLain said he had never seen a compact disc player until Thursday night when he spent the night at the home of one of his lawyers.

Yet Melendez, who called himself a ''simple, simple, simple man,'' would not say whether he would sue the state for the ''17 years, 8 months and one day'' he has spent in custody. He said that was business better left to lawyers and he had no time to be bitter. Instead he said he hopes his case will change the system in the long run.

''Nothing they can do to make it up to me,'' Melendez said. ''The only thing they can do is give me my time back, and that's impossible. I cannot be bitter. I hope and pray that other people can help themselves with this case.''

Julia Ferrante of The Ledger in Lakeland contributed to this report.

Published Saturday, January 5, 2002

Freed Man Yearns For Simple Pleasures
Juan Melendez was released Thursday after spending 17 years on death row.

Saturday, January 5, 2002
By GARY FINEOUT
& JULIA FERRANTE The Ledger

TALLAHASSEE -- Juan Roberto Melendez wants to spend his first few days of freedom doing some very simple things: looking at the stars, maybe eating some food from a fast-food restaurant and going to live with his elderly mother in Puerto Rico.

The 50-year-old Melendez, who was freed Thursday after spending 17 years on Florida's death row, said he didn't want to be "negative" and talk about how he was treated in prison or how he felt about the Polk County prosecutors who charged him with murder.

"It's a happy day for me now," Melendez said. "I'm just glad to be out and glad that I can make it back home and take care of my mama. Let's talk about good things. I want to see the stars and the moon."

But Melendez -- whose newfound freedom adds to the ongoing criticism of the death penalty -- reasserted that he was innocent of the 1983 slaying of Auburndale cosmetology school owner Delbert "Mr. Del" Baker. The one-time fruit picker, who was arrested at an orchard in Pennsylvania months after the murder, said he did not know the victim and has never set foot in Auburndale.

And if he is innocent, reasoned Melendez and his attorneys, others on Florida's death row may be as well.

"There's a lot of innocent men on death row nationwide," said Melendez, who as of midday Friday said he had not slept since the night before, when he was released from Union Correctional Institution. "If you find one, you will find 20, 30, 40, maybe hundreds."

Melendez was freed Thursday after prosecutors in Polk County said they did not have enough evidence to convict him in a new trial. After years of losing appeals, Melendez's 1984 conviction was thrown out after a transcript of another man's confession to the crime was discovered in 1999.

Prosecutors continue to maintain that Melendez was guilty, as does a juror who voted to convict him.

"He's lucky he's free because he's guilty in my opinion," said Jim Lear, a former Winter Haven city commissioner who served as foreman of the jury. "I remember it like it was yesterday. There were four witnesses who said Melendez was elsewhere the day of the murder, but they were pathetic."

Lear, who with his wife owned a beauty salon in Winter Haven, knew Baker, owner of Mr. Del's Beauty School in Auburndale. Lear also knew the state attorney at the time, the presiding judge and several other judges.

He said an inmate's testimony that Melendez confessed to the killing in jail convinced him that Melendez was guilty.

The inmate, David Luna Falcon, testified that Melendez told him he slit Baker's throat and then shot him in the back of the head after Baker begged for his life. Falcon is now dead. Another witness who also testified that he drove Melendez to the beauty shop later recanted his testimony.

But a Hillsborough County circuit judge in December granted a new trial to Melendez and criticized prosecutors for withholding police reports, notes and interviews with a witness who said another man was involved in Baker's death.

The case was moved from the Polk County court to a Hillsborough court because Roger Alcott, the defense attorney in the case, has since become a circuit judge, said Chip Thullbery, administrative assistant state attorney. The Polk judges recused themselves from the case because Alcott would have been a witness in the latest appeal.

Lear, however, said if there was other evidence that did not come to light at the original trial it was the fault of the judge.

"The judge knows 10 times more than the jury will ever know, and that's always the case," Lear said. "The judge had a choice. He didn't have to go with the jury's recommendation."

The jury initially split 6-6 on the verdict, Lear said. Eventually, all but one juror was convinced of Melendez's guilt. The jury later voted 9-3 in favor of the death penalty.

"We had a hung jury for quite a while. It was 11-1 because an elderly woman said there was no way she could find a nice-looking young man like Juan guilty," Lear said.

"Juan had a way of looking at the jury. He would cock his head back and look at you like a puppy dog. During the trial, he looked like a schoolboy."

Lear said the woman changed her mind after Lear showed her a photograph introduced by prosecutors of Melendez with a long Afro hair style and eyes "as big as silver dollars."

The State Attorney's Office said prosecutors didn't mishandle the case. Thullbery said prosecutors did not hide transcripts or reports, and they do not think they are obligated to turn over notes generated during interviews.

If a witness claims responsibility for a crime during the investigation of a case, the state is obligated to share the information with the defense, Thullbery said. But the state thinks it is not obligated to turn over notes.

The release of Melendez marks the 22nd time since the death penalty was reinstated in the late 70's that someone sentenced to death has been freed in Florida, said Martin McLain, a lawyer who specializes in handling death penalty cases.

McLain and other anti-death-penalty advocates said the case shows why Florida should institute a moratorium on the death penalty. In late 2000, DNA evidence exonerated Frank Lee Smith nearly 11 months after he had died of cancer on death row.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Jeb Bush -- who has tried to speed up the rate of executions in Florida -- rejected the suggestion.

"We will not be calling for a moratorium," said Katie Baur. "There's no proof that this man was wrongfully convicted. He had access to multiple levels of appeals, and at every level he was found guilty. Floridians have spoken out on this issue and overwhelmingly support capital punishment when violent murders are committed against innocent people. Imposing a moratorium without any basis for doing so would subvert justice."

Melendez, a Brooklyn native who was 33 at the time of his conviction and now has traces of silver in his hair, said he thinks the death penalty is "immoral." He said that the isolation and loneliness of living on death row can bear down on people unless they have faith in something bigger. "They really don't have to kill you, they are killing you inside already," Melendez said.

He said he survived by his belief in Christianity and by keeping himself busy, such as learning how to read and write in English. Melendez said he tried to stay informed about the outside world -- but McLain said Melendez had never seen a compact disc player until Thursday night when he spent the night at the home of one of his lawyers.

Yet Melendez, who called himself a "simple, simple, simple man," would not say whether he would sue the state for the "17 years, eight months and one day" he has spent in custody. He said that was business better left to "lawyers," and he had no time to be "bitter." Instead he hopes his case will change the system in the long run.

"Nothing they can do to make it up to me," Melendez said. "The only thing they can do is give me my time back, and that's impossible. I cannot be bitter. I hope and pray that other people can help themselves with this case."

Published Saturday, January 5, 2002

Freed inmate doesn't hold grudge
Man spent years awaiting execution

BY LESLEY CLARK lclark@herald.com

TALLAHASSEE -- A joyful Juan Roberto Melendez, freed from Florida's death row after ``17 years, eight months and one day,'' said Friday he wasn't interested in assigning blame -- he only wanted ``to see the stars and the moon.''

Released late Thursday from Union Correctional Institution after years behind bars for a murder to which another man had confessed, Melendez spent a sleepless night at his attorney's Tallahassee home before appearing before a phalanx of photographers and reporters.

A gap-toothed grin frequently broke across his face as Melendez, 50, patiently fielded questions about how he felt to finally be free.

``I had a lot of mixed feelings,'' he said, smiling. ``But they're all awfully good.''

He repeatedly declined to talk about ``anything negative,'' including his treatment in prison, though he called the loneliness of death row ``a disease.'' Nor did he criticize the prosecutors who convicted him of the 1983 murder of a Central Florida beauty school owner.

``I'm real happy and anything negative, I don't feel like talking about,'' he said.

Death penalty opponents seized on Melendez's release to renew a call for a moratorium on executions in Florida, saying the state leads the country in the number of inmates freed from death row by new evidence.

Three executions are scheduled in the next six weeks, but Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday there was ``no proof'' Melendez was wrongly convicted.

``Floridians have spoken on this issue overwhelmingly and they support capital punishment when violent murders are committed against innocent citizens,'' said Bush spokeswoman Lisa Gates. ``Imposing a moratorium without any basis would subvert justice.''

Melendez said his case pointed out ``too many gaps.''

``They make so many mistakes that an innocent man can get killed,'' he said.

Melendez is the 99th death row inmate freed on new evidence in the United States, and the 22nd in Florida, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Penalty Information Project.

A Tampa circuit judge last month ordered a new trial for Melendez, finding the state withheld evidence favorable to him. Melendez was released after Polk County prosecutors reluctantly concluded they no longer have the evidence to retry him.

Melendez was sentenced to die in 1984 for the murder of Delbert ``Mr. Del'' Baker in his Auburndale beauty salon. He was nearing the end of his appeals when his current attorneys contacted his former defense lawyer, Roger Alcott, who discovered a key transcript: a murder confession by Vernon James, a now-deceased witness in the case who said Melendez wasn't even at the scene.

Trial prosecutor Hardy Pickard, who the judge said failed to disclose information to the defense, declined comment Friday.

Melendez said he holds no grudge. As for whether he plans to seek damages against the state, Melendez said ``that's lawyers' business.''

But, he noted, there is ``nothing they can do to make it up to me. The only thing they can do is give me my time back and that's impossible.

``Now all I've got in my mind is to look after my mama,'' he said of his mother, Andrea Colon Rodriguez, in Maunubo, Puerto Rico. ``She's 73 years old. She's all alone. I just want to be with her for her last days.''

Melendez was a Brooklyn-born fruit picker who moved to Florida at 19 because it reminded him of Puerto Rico, where he grew up.

A self-described ``regular guy,'' he had only a ninth-grade education and couldn't read or write English when he went to prison at age 33. Behind bars, fellow death row inmate Jerry Rogers taught him English, he said.

Melendez said he ``never lost hope'' that he would be released.

``That's the key to surviving there,'' he said. ``You can never give up. You've got to believe in something more powerful than the system.''

Wearing a stylish gray sweater, black slacks and loafers to Friday's press conference, he was well spoken and at ease. But prison life is merciless, he said.

``All the time you spend in there, you're losing the love to be around your family, the loneliness,'' he said. ``They really don't have to kill you; they're killing you in there already.''

Though no governor ever signed a death warrant for Melendez, he said he ``was close to death the day they sentenced me.''

His release gave hope to his fellow inmates, Melendez said: ``They all wished me good luck and clapped their hands when I left. They were very happy for me.''

His attorneys with Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, the state agency that handles death appeals, beamed as Melendez spoke.

``At what point in time do these cases become enough of a concern for the courts and the governor?'' asked attorney Marty McClain, who pursued the appeal along with Bret Strand, Linda McDermott and investigator Rosa Greenbaum.

``Hats off to the state of Florida for having Capital Collateral to represent Mr. Melendez, but 17 years, eight months and one day is too long.''

McClain said the saddest moment for him came as Melendez unpacked his belongings, eager to show his lawyers a family photo album.

``I realized that's 18 years of a life all in these three little boxes,'' McClain said.

Before he entered prison, Melendez had a common-law wife and three daughters, but he said he lost touch with them. ``They're all grown up now,'' he said. After 40 minutes of media questions, Melendez had a request: ``I would like to go now and take a nice nap.''

Published Saturday, January 5, 2002

Former inmate savors freedom from death row

In the nation's leading state for exonerations of people sentenced to die, the case of Juan Roberto Melendez renews debate over the death penalty.

By JULIE HAUSERMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 5, 2002

In the nation's leading state for exonerations of people sentenced to die, the case of Juan Roberto Melendez renews debate over the death penalty.

TALLAHASSEE -- Locked in a dingy death row cell for nearly 18 years, Juan Roberto Melendez kept busy watching rats crawl, making friends with other condemned men and learning to read and write English.

It was a dismal existence.

"You are so lonely," he said Friday. "They really don't have to kill you. They kill you in there already."

Melendez, 50, was abruptly freed Thursday night from behind the thick walls of the Florida State Prison in Starke. On Friday, he stood with a grin before a gaggle of reporters, a small man in borrowed clothes answering questions beneath fluorescent lights.

How were you treated inside?

"I don't feel like talking about those things right now. This is a happy day."

What was your first meal?

"Soup. That's all my stomach could take."

What do you want to do now?

"I want to see the stars and the moon. I want to look after my mama. She's 73 years old and all alone."

Are you angry about all those wasted years?

"I cannot be bitter. I have to have a positive mind. The only way they can repay me is by giving me 18 years back, and that's impossible. I am innocent. I've never seen the victim. I never knew where the crime occurred. Don't take my word for it. Do your own research. It's all in black and white."

How do you feel?

"I have a lot of mixed feelings."

Pause. Smile. "But they are all good!"

Melendez's case is now part of Florida's political debate over the death penalty. Opponents say the release of another death row prisoner -- Melendez is the 23rd since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 -- proves that Florida should impose a moratorium on executions until the system is studied. The state has more death row inmates exonerated than any other state. A 10-day "moratorium march" is planned later this month, starting Jan. 21 at the Florida State Prison and ending at the state Capitol.

Melendez won't be with them; he says he plans to return to his native Puerto Rico as soon as possible.

Friday, Melendez said he is innocent of the crime that sent him to death row: the 1983 murder of a Central Florida beauty school owner, Delbert Baker. No physical evidence ever connected Melendez to the crime. He was a migrant fruit picker with a ninth-grade education, and he couldn't read or write English when he was arrested at age 33.

But the prosecutors on the case -- and Gov. Jeb Bush's office -- say his innocence hasn't been proved.

"There's no proof that this man was wrongfully convicted," said Bush spokeswoman Lisa Gates. "He had access to multiple levels of appeals, and on every level, he was found guilty. There's no basis for imposing a moratorium based on this case."

John Aguero, chief of the homicide division for the Polk County State Attorney's office, which once got Melendez convicted, said simply: "He murdered Delbert Baker. There's nothing that changes our opinion that Mr. Melendez is the person who committed this murder."

Melendez got his break last month, when Hillsborough Circuit Judge Barbara Fleischer threw out his conviction. Fleischer found that the trial prosecutor failed to disclose important information to the defense in 1984.

Fleischer ordered a new trial. But prosecutors said they don't have enough evidence to convict; one witness is dead, and another recanted his testimony.

Melendez's lawyers say that another man, Vernon James, admitted to being involved in the murder. James told a lawyer years ago that Melendez wasn't involved. James is now dead, but a transcript of his 17-year-old statement recently turned up. It was powerful enough to change the outcome of Melendez's case.

His conviction having been overturned, Melendez was let go by the state. The condemned men on death row applauded when he walked out, he said.

"Their hopes increase when they see someone like me get their freedom," Melendez said.

"I hope this case can help others," he said. "There's a lot of innocent men on death row nationwide. I think there are too many gaps. They make so many mistakes that innocent men can get killed, and God only knows how many have been killed."

Published Saturday, January 5, 2002

Saturday, January 5, 2002
Man free after 18 years on Death Row
By David Twiddy
DEMOCRAT CAPITOL BUREAU
Please see MELENDEZ, 2A

Prosecutors decide against a new trial

After almost 18 years on Florida's Death Row in Raiford, Juan Roberto Melendez spent a restless first night of freedom.

"I couldn't sleep," a bleary-eyed Melendez told reporters during a Friday news conference in Tallahassee. "It's like a state of shock."

Melendez, 50, walked out of the Union Correctional Institution Thursday night after Polk County prosecutors decided not to retry him on charges that he killed an Auburndale man almost two decades ago.

A jury convicted him of the crime in 1984, but a team of attorneys and investigators found enough evidence to persuade a circuit judge last month to order a new trial for Melendez. The prosecution, however, acknowledged that it no longer had enough evidence to convict Melendez again because its two main witnesses in the case are either dead or have recanted parts of their testimony.

"We do not view this as an exoneration, nor do we view that he is not guilty," said Chip Thullbery, a spokesman for the Polk County state attorney's office.

"We can't prove it in court."

In the meantime, death penalty opponents are using Melendez - the 24th Death Row inmate set free since Florida reinstated capital punishment - as a platform to ask Gov. Jeb Bush to call a moratorium on future executions. The next execution, that of Amos King, is scheduled for Jan. 24.

"(Melendez's) is an egregious case, and it calls attention, again, to the problem," said Walter Moore, chairman of the Tallahassee Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The group plans on Jan. 31 to present the governor with petitions against capital punishment following a march from Raiford that is scheduled to begin on Jan. 21.

A spokeswoman for Bush, however, said there was no proof that Melendez was wrongfully convicted and his reprieve shows the system works.

"Floridians have spoken out on this issue, and they support the death penalty when violent murders are committed," said spokeswoman Katie Baur. "So imposing a moratorium without any basis for doing so would subvert justice."

For the most part, Melendez didn't want to talk about any of that, other than repeating that he had never known the victim, Delbart Baker, or even been to Auburndale, a small town east of Lakeland.

Smiling frequently, the Brooklyn-born former fruit picker said he wanted to enjoy the day, see the stars and eventually join his 73-year-old mother in Puerto Rico.

"I want to be with her for her last days," he said.

He waived off questions about how he felt toward prosecutors or prison employees or what he would say to the governor. But splinters of bitterness occasionally poked through.

"The only thing they can do (as compensation) is give me my time back, and that's impossible," said Melendez, who had lost touch with his two grown children while in prison and doubts he'll try to reconnect. "They have their own lives to live."

However, he did say that he felt the death penalty was "immoral" because it was too easy to make mistakes.

"If you find one, you'll find 20, 30, 50, maybe hundreds," he said.

Melendez said that while in prison he learned to read and write English and became more spiritual.

Melendez's hope came in the form of Linda McDermott, Bret Strand and Marty McClain, attorneys who took up his case a couple years ago for the Capital Collateral Regional Council, a state-funded agency that represents Death Row inmates. They tracked down an original investigator now living in Pennsylvania who talked with Melendez's original attorney, now a Polk County judge. The judge steered the investigator to old notes on the case, which included transcripts of a taped statement by another man, confessing to the murder.

The man, identified as Vernon James, made incriminating statements to state investigators, but the prosecutors never told defense attorneys about them. Last month, Circuit Judge Barbara Fleischer issued a ruling vacating Melendez's original sentence and calling for a new trial.

Contact reporter David Twiddy at (850) 222-6729 or drtwiddy@taldem.com.

Another Death Row Mistake

Washington Post editorial
Saturday, January 5, 2002

AT HIS TRIAL in Florida in 1984 for the murder of one Delbert Baker, Juan Roberto Melendez sought to argue that another man, Vernon James, had committed the crime. But when Mr. James was called to testify, he took the Fifth Amendment, and Mr. Melendez was convicted and sentenced to death.

Seventeen years later, facing a mountain of new evidence that all seems to bolster Mr. Melendez's trial defense, Florida Circuit Judge Barbara Fleischer threw out Mr. Melendez's conviction. Exculpatory evidence had been withheld, she wrote, and the cumulative effects of new evidence "combine to undermine the confidence in the outcome of Defendant's original trial" and create "a reasonable probability of a different outcome." This week, prosecutors decided to drop the case and Mr. Melendez went free.

The evidence against Mr. Melendez was never strong. He was convicted on the strength of two witnesses -- one of whom professed peripheral involvement in the killing and the other of whom claimed Mr. Melendez had confessed to him.

As far back as 1986, one judge of the Florida Supreme Court objected to his death sentence, saying "I do not . . . believe that the quality of [the] evidence is sufficient to support imposition of the death penalty." But Mr. Melendez remained on death row, and until 2000, his appeals were going nowhere. He could easily have been executed.

The break in the case came only in 2000, when it came to light that Mr. Melendez's trial attorneys had possessed a taped interview with the now-deceased Mr. James in which, as Judge Fleischer put it, "Vernon James said that Juan Melendez was not present when [the victim] was killed."

Numerous other witnesses have also been located, and their statements "tend to corroborate that Vernon James was present and that Juan Melendez was not." Meanwhile, serious questions have been raised about the two witnesses who implicated Mr. Melendez. Their prior statements, withheld from the defense, contradicted their testimony at trial on numerous points.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Mr. Melendez is the 99th death row inmate to be freed since the modern era of capital punishment began in this country. In that time, there have been around 750 executions -- meaning that an unnervingly large number of capital convictions are ultimately shown to involve the gravest of errors. How many times, one must wonder, have such errors gone undiscovered? Particularly now, with states racing convicts from the courtroom to the death chamber, nobody can say with any confidence that all of the people executed in America have been guilty.

It is long past time to do away with a punishment that serves no useful purpose and the erroneous application of which will eventually -- if it hasn't already -- implicate government in the killing of innocent people.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64897-2002Jan4.html

Sunday, January 6, 2002
Sun Editorial: To err is deadly

Supporters of the death penalty bemoan what they consider a lengthy, tedious appeals process that can delay by years the "swift" administration of justice. And, indeed, if capital punishment were the well-oiled machine its adherents wish it to be, Juan Roberto Melendez would have been strapped into the electric chair years ago for the murder of Delbert Baker, of Auburndale.

Instead, Melendez was released from Union Correctional Institution this week. Lawyers working on Melendez's lengthy, tedious appeals process eventually turned up a long-forgotten transcript of a taped confession from another man, Vernon James, who had repeatedly confessed to Baker's murder. Not only was the confession disregarded by prosectors, but they failed to disclose it to the defense.

The case against Melendez consisted of no physical evidence linking him to the murder. Instead, it largely rested on the testimony of two witnesses who were both shown to have personal grudges against the defendant. One of those witnesses has recanted, the other is now dead.

Prosecutors, at long last ordered to retry Melendez, have decided they no longer have the "evidence" to convict him again. In other words, under our innocent-until-proven-guilty system of justice, Melendez is an innocent man who has wrongly spent 17 years on death row. Only the lengthy and tedious appeals process that death penalty supporters so detest prevented Florida from executing an innocent man.

As a matter of fact, Melendez is one of 24 death row inmates who have been freed because further review of their cases cast doubt upon their guilt. Since reinstatement of the death penalty, the state has executed 51 condemned men. That mean one "mistake" has been uncovered for every two people killed.

"That is a terrible track record," Richard Dieter, of the Death Penalty Information Center, in Washington, told the St. Petersburg Times this week. "There are too many mistakes being uncovered to have much confidence in the way the system is working....I think it would cause the state to say, why is this happening?"

Prosecutors say they still believe Melendez to be guilty. But what else are they going to say? That they sent an innocent man to death row due to negligence or, worse, prosecutorial misconduct? In any case, their actions - dropping the case - speak louder than their words.

Melendez needlessly spent 17 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He might have been put to death years ago if the clunky death machine were indeed as well oiled as its proponents would wish.

Citing the Melendez case, the group Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty this week called upon Gov. Jeb Bush to impose a moratorium on further executions in Florida; something the governor of Illinois did after he decided that too many people in that state were being wrongfully convicted and condemned.

"Florida leads the nation in the number of innocent people released from our death row," says Abe Bonowitz, director of FADP. "Illinois Gov. George Ryan, a staunch Republican who still supports the death penalty, declared a total halt to executions in Illinois after that state released its 13th wrongly convicted prisoner so that the system can be thoroughly examined, mistakes found and corrected, and flaws eliminated. We in Florida have now released 24. The time for a moratorium and an independent and thorough study is well past due."

On Martin Luther King Day, death penalty opponents plan to deliver to Gov. Bush thousands of petitions calling for a moratorium on executions in Florida. In the name of justice, Bush should follow Gov. Ryan's example.

"They can give me a billion dollars and they cannot pay for what they did to me," Melendez told reporters upon being released from death row after 17 years. Of course, had "justice" been as swift and speedy as death row boosters want it to be, Florida would have long ago killed and buried its mistake, and there would be no need to even speak of reparations for Melendez.

When the ultimate punishment is involved, to err is deadly.

So Much For Those Champions Of The Sanctity of Life
By Daniel Ruth
The Tampa Tribune, published January 7, 2002

In the annals of hyperbolic gibberish, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's comment in 2000 that in applying the death penalty, ``justice be made swifter and surer,'' had to trump Tampa Bay Buccaneer Warren Sapps' twisted interpretation of history in arguing his $30 million contract constituted slave wages.

Back then, Bush was leading a cabal of state legislators who wanted to pick up the pace of executing condemned Florida prison inmates by eliminating nagging steps in the process like those silly appeal thingamajigs, or whatever that legal mumbo-jumbo junk is called.

And Bush, R-Torquemada, along with his little pals in the Legislature, almost succeeded when they passed a law limiting the number of appeals a death row inmate could file, in an effort to reduce the time between sentencing and execution from an average of nearly 12 years to four years.

What would you call this? Justice lite?

Liberal Tools

Fortunately, those guys in robes who sit in a building behind the Capitol - Supreme Court justices I think they're called - got all wrapped up in this law stuff and ruled the governor and the de facto vigilantes in the Legislature were, well, nuts for trying to turn death row into an assembly line of body bags and, oh yeah, it was illegal, too.

For suggesting that prisoners whom the state wants to kill ought to have every possible opportunity to appeal their convictions, Florida's Supreme Court jurists were labeled as little more than whiny, hand-wringing, weak-kneed liberal tools of the Communist Party and/or Democrats.

It's possible Bush, R-Kevorkian, was suffering from intravenous envy since his brother George W., then the governor of Texas, was dispatching miscreants to the hereafter at a rate surpassed only by a ``daisy cutter'' over Tora Bora.

Thus, once again Florida was playing No. 2 to Texas in executions. Now there's no question if every inhabitant on death row was the caliber of fiend on the order of Ted Bundy or Danny Rolling or Aileen Wuornos - sure, you could fire up the state's lethal injection apparatus to a tank the size of a gas truck and let the games begin.

But life - or more accurately, death - doesn't quite work that way.

We're No. 1!

As it turned out, Florida did lead the nation, including Texas, in one capital punishment statistic: Of the nearly 100 condemned inmates nationwide who have been released from death row, approximately 25 percent of them have come from the Sunshine State.

Although those cases represent egregious miscarriages of justice, one of the sadder exonerations involved Frank Lee Smith, who served 14 years on death row before being cleared with the help of DNA testing in the murder of an 8-year-old Fort Lauderdale girl. Unfortunately, Smith died in prison before he could be freed. Ooooops.

A few days ago, Juan Roberto Melendez walked out of the Union Correctional Institution after 17 years on death row.

Melendez was convicted in a 1984 murder based completely on hearsay testimony, which later was recanted. Indeed, another suspect, Vernon James, confessed on four occasions to the killing of a Polk County man, but none of those admissions was allowed to be heard by a jury.

Had the fast-track appeals process sought by Bush, R-Ox Bow Incident, and his fellow Kangaroo Court proponents in the Legislature been in place, Smith, Melendez and more than 20 other death row inmates - innocent men - would have been executed before they had a chance to clear their names.

That is ``swift and sure'' justice? Maybe in Afghanistan.

The irony, or perhaps more pointedly, the hypocrisy here is this is the same group of pols who, while trying to streamline appeals in capital punishment cases to make it easier and faster to kill people, championed the creation of the state's antiabortion license plate because they so very much treasure the sanctity of life.

In light of Florida's standing as the death row exoneration capital of the nation, what do you think the odds are Bush, R-Star Chamber, and the Legislature would support a ``Chose Justice'' license plate?

After all, isn't the life of Juan Roberto Melendez just as sacred as a fetus?

Not in Tallahassee.

http://tampatrib.com/News/MGAJOIRV5WC.html

Florida's death row holds innocence hostage

Daytona BeachNews-Journal editorial
Tuesday, January 8, 2002

Five a.m.: Breakfast. Inmates are allowed plates and spoons.

For 17 years, this was Juan Melendez's life.

At 10:30 a.m., lunch. Food is prepared by Florida State Prison personnel and is transported in insulated carts to the cells.

Every day, the same thing. Trapped in a 6x9 cell. No human contact.

At 4 p.m., supper. Inmates may shower every other day.

Every day was spent in the shadow of an oaken chair just a few hundred feet away. One day, the chair was replaced with a gurney and a needle. It probably didn't make much difference for Juan Melendez.

Inmates do not have cable television or air-conditioning and they are not allowed to be with each other in a common room. They can watch church services on closed circuit television.

For an innocent man on Death Row, what was there to pray for? And what compensation is due to a man who has had his life stolen, not by murder but by an official act of the state?

Polk County prosecutors offer no apologies to Melendez, who was convicted of a 1983 killing he didn't commit on the word of two eyewitnesses and no physical evidence. One of those witnesses is dead. Another has recanted.

In 1999, a transcript of another man's confession to the killings was finally provided to defense attorneys. That statement showed that another man, now dead, told at least four law-enforcement officials or attorneys of his guilt.

If Melendez were the only innocent man on death row, his case would still stain the fabric of justice in this country. He's not. He will be the 99th death row inmate in the United States to be found innocent and freed since executions resumed in 1973. Rudolph Holton, a Hillsborough County man whose 1986 conviction was overturned in November, remains on death row while prosecutors debate whether to retry him. If they don't, he might be the 100th.

Florida has executed 51 people since 1973. Twenty-four have been set free. At least two executed inmates -- Bennie Demps and Leo Jones -- have been virtually proven innocent after their deaths. Of the three men set to die over the next five weeks, two still maintain their innocence and one is mentally retarded.

Leaders in other states, with far less evidence that their court systems are denying justice, are questioning whether they should continue using the death penalty. Yet Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature continue to ignore the mounting evidence that this state's system is deeply flawed.

Prior to execution, an inmate may request a last meal. To avoid extravagance, the food to prepare the last meal must cost no more than $20 and must be purchased locally.

State leaders can let the system grind on, and hope the innocent -- who have already lost years of their lives to the grim routine of Death Row-- are rescued before they're killed. But when the state is forced to release one inmate for every two it executes, something is clearly wrong with its justice system. A far better course would be to stop executions, if not forever, then at least until every credible claim of innocence or injustice is explored.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/2002/Jan/8/OPN1.htm

How Much Is 17 Years Worth?
The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board
Wednesday, Janauary 09, 2002

An apology just isn't nearly enough. Florida owes Juan Melendez some serious compensation for 17 years and eight months of his life that were wrongly taken away by a criminal justice system that fouled up badly.

Taxpayers who resist making a meaningful payment to Melendez, through a legislative "claims bill," should ask themselves: How much would I want if I had been the victim of such injustice? (Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee, who spent nine years on Death Row for a murder they didn't commit, each received $500,000 from the state.)

Melendez was released from Florida's Death Row on Thursday, freed of charges that he committed a 1983 murder to which another man had repeatedly confessed.

Marty McClain, the attorney who won Melendez's freedom, said, "It really is a sad day that the system allowed this to happen and for it to go on so long." Sad indeed.

Melendez, a former migrant worker, was originally convicted of the slaying of Delbert Baker in Polk County. His conviction and death sentence were repeatedly upheld by appeals courts, until 2000, when his former defense attorney discovered some important exculpatory evidence.

It turned out that another man, Vernon James, now deceased, had admitted in a taped interview to the killing before the trial and later told about 20 people about it. A key prosecution witness, who claimed Melendez admitted the crime, later recanted his testimony.

Recently, a judge ordered a new trial, saying Melendez's prosecutor wrongly failed to disclose damaging information to the defense attorney and gave misleading information to the jury.

Prosecutors decided they couldn't retry Melendez and he was set free. In addition to compensating Melendez, Florida also owes its citizens a careful examination of all Death Row cases to see if other innocent people are facing execution because of injustices.

Politicians and other people who resist opening that can of worms ought to understand that Melendez isn't alone. He is the 99th person in the United States released or exonerated from a death sentence since the death penalty was reimposed in 1973. Among them are 22 from Florida, the most of any state. That's 22 too many.

The death penalty is justified for the most heinous of murders. But in implementing it, Florida and other states need to provide more safeguards to protect the innocent from a tragic miscarriage of justice.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/
editorial/sfl-edittsdeathjan09.story?coll=sfla%2Dnews%2Deditorial

Editorial: Death Row loses again
The Palm Beach Post
Wednesday, January 9, 2002

Florida's supposedly flawless judicial system lost another tire last week when Juan Roberto Melendez left Union Correctional Institution. Fortunately, the victim of this most recent blowout at least could walk away.

In 1984, a Polk County jury convicted Mr. Melendez for the murder of Delbert Baker, a beauty-salon owner in the Central Florida town of Auburndale. He spent nearly 18 years on Death Row until a piece of evidence emerged to show that the state of Florida stole that much of his life for a crime he did not commit.

The miscarriage of justice came to light the same way police crack cases, through a combination of hard work and luck. In 1999, Death Row lawyers retracing the record contacted a judge who had been one of Mr. Melendez's attorneys. According to news reports, the judge recalled an interview in which a witness provided an alibi for Mr. Melendez. Reports were unclear as to why the lawyer didn't or couldn't introduce the transcript at the trial, but the Death Row lawyers persuaded a Hillsborough County judge, who in December ruled that Mr. Melendez deserved a new trial. Last week, the Polk County State Attorney's Office declined to retry because one witness has recanted and the other is dead.

A state attorney's spokesman said, "We believe the evidence was there" in 1984. But what about that "evidence"? In ordering a new trial, the judge concluded that prosecutors had withheld information from both the defense and the jury that could have exculpated Mr. Melendez.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Mr. Melendez is the 99th person in the United States to be exonerated after receiving a death sentence. He becomes the 22nd in Florida, the most of any state. Yet a spokesman for Gov. Bush rejected a capital-punishment moratorium, citing all the Melendez appeals that had been upheld. Those appeals, of course, came before disclosure of the key evidence.

Two years ago, DNA tests showed that a Broward County man who died of cancer in prison had been sentenced to death for someone else's murder. The lawyers who secured Mr. Melendez's freedom work for the state agency the governor and Legislature have tried to emasculate. Those lawyers do unpopular work.

Obviously, it's also essential work.

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Flawed justice

The Orlando Sentinel
Thursday, January 10, 2002

The Melendez case shows the need for a review of the death penalty. Florida's death penalty suffered another black eye last week when a 50-year-old man was set free after 17 years on death row.

Juan Melendez was the 22nd person freed from Florida's death row during the past two decades because of misconduct by police or lawyers or a new finding of innocence. More people have been removed from Florida's death row than in any other state. That dubious record shows that Florida's system of condemning people is dangerously flawed.

This case also puts to rest the notion that the legal appeals system can be counted on to rescue people wrongly condemned to death. Mr. Melendez's case underwent several reviews by appeals courts and the state Supreme Court. Despite that process, he was left languishing on death row.

Mr. Melendez's salvation came when a lawyer who handles death-penalty cases found a taped statement from a man who admitted to the killing. That man, who is now deceased, said that Mr. Melendez was not even present when the slaying occurred.

What's even more alarming is that the prosecutor who got Mr. Melendez convicted and condemned knew about the taped statement but did not disclose the information to defense lawyers. Defense and prosecuting attorneys are supposed to exchange the evidence they have gathered prior to a trial.

The miscarriage of justice in this case was so overwhelming that a Tampa judge ordered a retrial for Mr. Melendez. In her order for the mistrial, the judge blasted the prosecutor for withholding evidence that could have cleared Mr. Melendez at the original trial.

The prosecutor's office stubbornly refuses to admit that Mr. Melendez was wrongly condemned to death. But officials there won't retry him because they say they don't have enough evidence to convict him.

So why in the world did those prosecutors make Mr. Melendez waste more than one-third of his life on death row?

This case should scare any fair-minded person. Those convicted of serious crimes, such as murder, deserve tough penalties.

But this case also illustrates that the justice system in this state is fallible. Putting someone to death leaves no room for fixing errors. If the process for sending Mr. Melendez to death row was flawed, what about the other 372 people who sit there today, awaiting execution?

The integrity of the state's court system demands reviewing the application of capital punishment in Florida to make sure that it makes sense and is effective.

Gov. Jeb Bush, who has the burden of signing death warrants required for execution, should be the main person calling for a review to ensure that innocent people aren't being punished. Instead, he stubbornly insists that the system works.

But in his tenure, four condemned people have been found wrongly condemned to death. That's scary.

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orl-edped101011002jan10.story?coll=orl%2Dopinion%2Dheadlines

Hanif: Few details on Death Row release
By C. B. Hanif, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 10, 2002

Post editors usually give readers as much as they want to know on certain subjects with brief roundups of news culled from wire-service reports. The four paragraphs of "Fla. Death Row inmate freed after 17 years," on Page 7A last Friday, illustrate the challenge of distilling the essentials of some stories for space.

"It seems to me odd that this newspaper hasn't picked up this story and done more with it," a caller said. "It says here first of all that the man `who has spent 17 years on Death Row for a slaying to which another man had repeatedly confessed will go free because prosecutors say they don't have enough evidence for a court-ordered retrial.' Well, a question is if you don't have enough evidence for a court-ordered retrial, then somehow the evidence that they originally had disappeared. Or did they not in fact have enough evidence for the original trial? In which case, the question then becomes why was the man convicted? That's the first point.

"Second point: It says here, 'Defense attorneys said the true killer, a now-deceased man named Vernon James, confessed to at least four investigators or attorneys, but none of these admissions was admitted in court.' The question is what sort of legal system do we have that won't admit confessions by another person to a murder of which the first person is being tried in court?

"Third thing is that it says 'the transcript of the other man's confession' -- this is the person who apparently really did it -- 'to the Polk County slaying was discovered in 1999.' What does that mean, 'discovered'?"

The item, which ran below another about a powder-tainted letter found in the Senate, was part of a longer Associated Press report about Juan Melendez. His story is of more than statewide significance, and led the Nationline roundup on Page 3A of USA Today. The story carries obvious implications in the death-penalty debate: Mr. Melendez is the 99th person to be exonerated after receiving the death sentence, and 22nd in Florida, more than any other state.

To show how subjective news editing can be, however, the Miami Herald ran an even longer staff-written report that continued from the front page of its Palm Beach County editions. In Fort Lauderdale, editors of the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel ran the AP version on Page 7B. The St. Petersburg Times ran a detailed report and followed the next day with a fine interview. The Herald best shed light on the caller's questions. Its report detailed the chance discovery of an old legal transcript in early 2000, while one of Mr. Melendez's former defense attorneys was moving old file boxes following his appointment as a Polk County circuit judge.

The transcript included Vernon James' taped admission of involvement in the murder about a month before Mr. Melendez's trial; also, Mr. James' statement that Mr. Melendez' had not been at the scene. The information was blocked from the trial, the Herald said, after Mr. James, himself once a suspect, took the Fifth Amendment rather than testify.

Armed with the transcript, investigators have found that Mr. James told a former law-enforcement officer and as many as 20 other people that he had been involved in or committed the murder, the Herald said. The failure to disclose potentially damaging information to the defense during the trial, including serious inconsistencies in statements by one of two major witnesses for the state, also figured in a judge ordering the retrial that prosecutors have declined to pursue.

Though Post editors made sure readers got the Melendez story, some might say it was underplayed. But the front page, at least, was loaded with other articles that local readers would consider significant: the University of Miami's Rose Bowl victory; Gov. Bush on Everglades restoration money; the Menorah Gardens cemetery; a snowstorm stranding hundreds at Palm Beach International Airport. What was needed was more of this story rather than just enough to raise more questions.

C.B. Hanif is an editorial writer and ombudsman for The Palm Beach Post. Items for Listening Post may be sent to lp@pbpost.com

Schultz: Death Row is convicted once again

By Randy Schultz, Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer
Sunday, January 13, 2002

It's scary to know that Florida's legal system has come so close to killing innocent people.

It's scarier to know that those who wield power over the legal system seem unwilling to admit that the state has come so close to killing innocent people.

Nine days ago, Juan Melendez left Union Correctional Institution. He had spent nearly 18 years on Death Row for a 1983 murder in Auburndale. Thanks to four tireless people who worked at taxpayer expense, the case collapsed.

Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Barbara Fleischer ordered a new trial last month and slammed prosecutors for withholding evidence from the defense and the jury that could have cleared Mr. Melendez. Polk County prosecutors said that they would not retry the case for lack of evidence but, as usual, claimed that they had convicted the right man.

Responding to questions about a moratorium on executions, a spokeswoman for Gov. Bush made this repulsive statement: "We will not be calling for a moratorium. There's no proof that this man was wrongfully convicted. He had access to multiple levels of appeals, and at every level he was found guilty. Floridians have spoken out on this issue and overwhelmingly support capital punishment when violent murders are committed against innocent people. Imposing a moratorium without any basis for doing so would subvert justice."

Florida's subversion of justice

If there is little agreement on the general issue of capital punishment, there should be total agreement that killing an innocent person is the greatest subversion of justice. Given the state's record, Florida almost certainly has subverted justice.

Depending on which group's count you use, 22 or 24 Death Row inmates have been cleared since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979. During that time, the state has executed 51 people. No state has seen more people exonerated. No state has become more reckless in trying to carry out the ultimate punishment without knowing whether it is deserved.

In January 2000, when Gov. Bush and the Legislature ignored constitutional law and tried to revise Florida's death-penalty rules, there was talk of a 10-year limit on post-conviction appeals. Under those changes, Juan Melendez would have been dead six years before investigators discovered a taped interview that attorney Martin McClain said was the "triggering device" for the appeal that freed him.

The delay isn't unusual. Mr. McClain, who spent nearly a decade with the state office that provides legal counsel for Death Row inmates and now takes cases on a contract basis, says such breaks "depend on information surfacing. It can be a random chance. It doesn't happen every time, but it probably will happen again."

In fact, Mr. Melendez was the seventh person to leave Death Row in Florida more than 10 years after being sent there. The subversion of justice trail inevitably leads back to sloppy or unethical work by police or prosecutors or both. As for Mr. Melendez's "multiple levels of appeals," all came before the key evidence turned up.

A hated but vital state agency

By then, the man who committed Delbert Baker's murder or helped carry it out had confessed to perhaps 10 people, Mr. McClain said. One woman said she helped Vernon James burn his bloody clothes. James also was a murder victim. The man who killed him did five years.

The others who worked with Mr. McClain to free Mr. Melendez are attorneys Linda McDermott and Bret Strand and investigator Rosa Greenbaum, staff members of the Capital Collateral Representative. It's a highly technical name for the agency that the Legislature created in 1985 to give Death Row inmates adequate legal representation.

The motivation was not a passion for justice; legislators and the attorney general worried that appeals courts might hold up executions.

Over the past 17 years, however, governors and the Legislature have cut the agency's budget, accused administrators of wasteful spending and split one large office in Tallahassee into three regional offices, in Tallahassee, Tampa and Miami. Most recently, Gov. Bush appointed two regional directors who are former prosecutors.

Legislators would cripple CCR, but to harass Death Row lawyers is to be tough on justice, not crime. Sometimes, the argument in a Death Row case is whether the sentence was fair. Sometimes, the argument is whether the inmate is innocent. Juan Melendez is free because your tax dollars were at work. Thank God.

Randy Schultz is editor of the editorial page of The Palm Beach Post. Comments about the Opinion section may be sent to him at schultz@pbpost.com

Orlando Sentinel: 1/27/02
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Freed man relishes his 2nd chance
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By Ivan Roman
San Juan Bureau

January 27, 2002

MAUNABO, Puerto Rico -- Three weeks ago, Juan Roberto Melendez was a dead man walking.

This morning, he will awaken to the sweet sound of crowing roosters outside his childhood home here -- no longer tormented about his date with death.

Melendez is not only a free man, he's a new man -- slowly suppressing that familiar sense of dread fueled during 17 years, eight months and one day on Florida's death row.

On Jan. 4, a Florida judge declared he had been unfairly convicted -- a finding that led to his release and renewed doubts about the death penalty. The news spurred a hero's welcome in his hometown, topped off with his mother's home cooking in the seaside hills where he played as a child.

Now, the 22nd man freed from Florida's death row spends as much time as possible outside. He smokes cigars at his "favorite place," a dead tree trunk in the back yard. He watches the leaves rustling in the wind -- appreciating the scene as few others can.

He talks to old classmates and well-wishers in his driveway, under the sun.

His mission, for the time being, is quite extraordinary: to leave behind not only the condemning of his body, but the jailing of his mind.

"You can only live off memories and nostalgia in there -- nothing else," said Melendez, blowing smoke from his cigar. "They don't have to kill you. They're killing you day by day. They're killing you mentally if you're not careful."

Melendez talked about the dull and dreary days on death row -- how, through the years, he had been given less and less to do during the four hours a week he was allowed to leave his 6-by-9-foot cell.

The knitting and crafts he made for relatives, or to make money, were taken away. So were the weights he lifted in the yard to release the tension and frustration over being locked up for a crime he insists he didn't commit.

"Every day it's the same thing over and over -- grinding in here," he said, pointing to his right temple. "That fear of dying in there with none of your family around you or none of the old friends you love. Thinking that you'll never see your mother again. Thinking that you'll never see your children again. You have to fight that tension every day and find a way out of it or you go crazy."

Melendez, a Brooklyn native who grew up in Puerto Rico, talked about the help and moral support he received from fellow death-row inmates -- people such as 47-year-old Amos King, condemned more than 20 years ago.

Accused in fatal shooting

There are few people on death row who will admit to being guilty. But there likely are few as adamant as Melendez, who insisted that he did not shoot Auburndale beauty-salon owner Delbert "Mr. Del" Baker in the head after a supposed accomplice slit his throat in 1983.

Defense attorneys and the judge who released Melendez say he was convicted in 1984 at the age of 33 with no physical evidence linking him to the crime and testimony from questionable witnesses.

After several rounds of appeals were denied over the years, it was his appellate attorneys' doggedness that ended up setting Melendez free just as time was running out.

Investigator Rosa Greenbaum, who worked with the appellate team, tracked down attorney Roger Alcott, who had defended Melendez in 1984, and discovered a transcript of a jailhouse interview taped about a month before the trial. In the interview, witness Vernon James admitted to being involved in the Baker murder and said Melendez was not even at the scene.

Armed with a transcript of James' confession, Melendez's lawyers talked to some 20 people James had told about the slaying. Some of them, including a law-enforcement officer, remembered that James had confessed.

In yet another break for Melendez, a prosecution witness who had testified to driving him to the beauty salon on the day of the murder later recanted.

At the trial, the prosecution's star witness, David Luna Falcon, testified that Melendez confessed to him. What prosecutors didn't reveal was that Falcon was a paid informant for the police and negotiated a deal in exchange for his testimony.

After studying all the new information, Circuit Judge Barbara Fleischer in Tampa ruled in December that prosecutors had withheld evidence pointing to James, who has since died, that would have cast doubt on Melendez's guilt. She ordered a new trial.

On Jan. 4, Polk County prosecutors decided they did not have enough evidence to retry Melendez, and he was released that afternoon.

Ecstatic, Melendez used his attorney's cell phone to call his mother, Andrea Colon Rodriguez, in Puerto Rico to break the news and hear her cry into the phone.

After staying with his attorneys for a week, and seeing a compact disc player for the first time, he flew to San Juan where relatives greeted him. He then traveled to his hometown where a large crowd cheered him.

"When he called me and told me 'Mom, I'm out,' I just cried out to God," said Colon Rodriguez, rocking on her back porch. "I asked Him so much to give my son a chance."

Her prayers were answered. Maunabo's mayor pledged to give Melendez a job, possibly working in the municipal gym with young people, counseling them with words and his example to stay out of trouble.

His life would qualify him for that position. Just a "simple, regular guy" who always shied away from factory work or much indoor activity, Melendez was a migrant farm worker since his teenage years in Puerto Rico. He dropped out of school after ninth grade.

Shortly after turning 19 in 1970, he and other neighbors joined a government-sponsored contract program to do migrant farm work in the U.S.

In Florida, he picked oranges, tomatoes and other crops and settled in Lakeland, where he had two daughters.

That's also where he had his first run-in with the law.

High on alcohol and drugs, Melendez and two others drove to a convenience store and, with a rifle that he says had no shells, robbed the place. He was convicted in 1975 and spent almost seven years behind bars. He had no more problems with the law until the police informant named him in the Baker murder.

Six months after the slaying, the FBI arrested him in an orchard in Pennsylvania, where he had gone to visit another daughter and to find work. Shortly after his trial, his girlfriend in Florida brought their 2-month-old daughter to see him in jail. This was the last time he saw her until his release.

That's the way he wanted it.

"I wanted to leave it alone and focus on other things because I couldn't do anything for them and they couldn't do anything for me," Melendez said. "It's hard to maintain a relationship with your daughters from jail. That's what I thought then. But I was wrong. One of the most important things when you're locked up is to keep contact with the family."

Now he hopes to make up for lost time. During his first week of freedom, he saw two of his daughters in Florida and plans to bring them for visits to Puerto Rico.

Childhood friends and fixtures of the neighborhood give him food and other gifts -- any gesture to welcome him back home. Having been away for 31 years, catching up on the gossip is just part of the adjustment.

He's had to relearn how to eat at a table and use metal silverware. His mother guides him through family albums to see the new faces and how those he knew have changed or grown. He's already been told twice on the streets to zip up his fly, which he didn't have to do for almost 18 years while wearing standard prison overalls.

His old and new neighbors indulge him on these little things that just add a little spice to his happiness and positive outlook. More mature and sobered by the experience, he mainly wants to be with his mother, tend the yard, maybe even do a little cooking.

"I'm still in a dream. I haven't woken up yet."

And he wants to put behind him, but not forget, the nightmare.

Melendez, the 99th inmate in the country to be released from death row, wants his case to show that a moratorium on executions and reform of the way capital cases are handled in Florida is long overdue.

Florida has most releases

With 22 releases, Florida tops the list. He is sure innocent people have been executed and more will be killed unless the death penalty is eliminated.

But Gov. Jeb Bush is not swayed by that argument. Nor is there any proof, the governor said, that Melendez received an unfair trial.

Almost 700 death-row inmates in the country await a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on an Arizona case involving how much authority a judge should have in sentencing someone to death. The high court's ruling could affect all 372 people on Florida's death row.

"Now those in favor of the death penalty will point to my release and say the system works. That's nonsense!" said Melendez, 50. "What about the 17 years, eight months and one day I was in there waiting for them to kill me? If the system had worked, that never would have happened."

Works to avoid bitterness

He shows little bitterness about the years robbed from him, the hugs he never got from his children before they had children of their own, the hundreds of times he missed eating his mother's rice and beans.

"I've got to live. I don't want to be bitter and locked inside the hate," said Melendez, twirling a lace on the sneakers that a fellow inmate gave him. "I know what it is. It could break you and kill you. It's not wise to live like that. It's not in my heart."

That's the feeling he exudes as he walks around town and people flash smiles and victory signs. In between banter catching up on people's lives, he describes plaintively, almost dispassionately, what it's like to be locked up. Or have his letters blocked. Or the loneliness when no one visits for months.

A relatively small town on the island's southeastern coast, Maunabo has grown much since he left, but the trees in the public square he played in as a child are still there. More houses crowd around his mother's home on the hillside by the beach, but many of the childhood buddies are still around.

"I am so happy and proud that he's back," said Aida Gonzalez Disdier, 46, a classmate of Melendez's youngest brother. "He makes a great contribution by proving that we all have a right to freedom, justice and for our rights to be respected. If they commit an injustice against one person, then they are doing it to everyone else."

Wearing shorts that a lawyer gave him and gold chains from his mother and brother, Melendez went in search of more friends from his high school, where several are history and accounting teachers.

Having missed a couple of them, he walked back to the car in a pouring tropical rain.

"Aren't you going to get under the umbrella?" Gonzalez asked.

"No," he answered. "This is a blessing."

Ivan Roman can be reached at iroman@orlandosentinel.com or 787-729-9071.

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