by Jesse H. Diner

Page 6

Flip through the pages of Florida’s scrapbook of the wrongfully incarcerated.

The first page is the first person in Florida to receive compensation and an apology from the state in 2005, after being exonerated by DNA evidence. It’s a close-up of the blond-haired, soft-spoken Wilton Dedge, as he bowed his head and cried softly, struggling to tell legislators about all the simple joys of life and moments with his family lost when he was arrested at 20 and wrongfully convicted twice for a brutal rape, spending half of his life locked in prison.

Dedge’s case in the 18th Judicial Circuit was built on the testimony of a notorious jailhouse snitch; a discredited dog handler claiming his dog could track cold scents months and years later; and a 17-year-old victim who described her rapist as six feet tall and 180-200 pounds, though Dedge is a five-foot, five-inch tall slender man. Jurors also disregarded alibi testimony from six coworkers at an auto body shop who said Dedge was at work at the time of the crime.

Finally, after a 16-year legal fight, newly developed Y-Chromosome DNA testing conclusively excluded Dedge as the rapist, and Dedge walked out of the Brevard County Jail a free man.

Turn the page to another case from the same circuit: William Dillon, sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder at age 21 and now a 50-year-old free man, waiting to see if he will receive compensation from a claims bill sponsored by Senate President-designate Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, and the entire Brevard County delegation.

Sandy D’Alemberte, who represented both Dedge and Dillon, working with the Innocence Project of Florida, describes Dillon’s case as filled with lies, bogus evidence from the same “charlatan” dog handler, eye-witness identification that didn’t match Dillon, an ignored alibi, prosecutorial misconduct, and recanted testimony from a key witness having sexual relations with the sheriff’s lead investigator.

A third page in this scrapbook of Florida’s exonerees shows the photo of Gov. Charlie Crist embracing a teary-eyed Alan Crotzer in 2008, after signing into law a bill to compensate Crotzer $1.25 million for the 24 years, six months, 13 days, and four hours he was wrongfully incarcerated for 1981 rapes he did not commit. Later, the governor gave Crotzer a full pardon and expunged his prior convictions (for stealing Busch Light from a convenience store when he was 18 and buying pot from a prison guard). With his fresh start in life, Crotzer, 47, thrust his fists into the air and gave thanks to God and to the Innocence Project of Florida, where he now sits on the board of directors.

Yet another picture shows Juan Melendez flashing a peace sign and wearing a “Not Guilty” T-shirt while standing outside the Florida State University College of Law, saying he’s living proof Florida’s death penalty law is broken. He spent 17 years, eight months, and one day locked up in a six-by-nine foot cell on Florida’s Death Row for a murder he did not commit, praying for a miracle. That miracle finally came in 2002 when he was 50 and became the 22nd person in Florida released or exonerated from a death sentence. Both the defense attorney and prosecutor had taped and transcribed confessions of the actual killer in the files a month before Melendez was convicted and never brought it forward, said Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida.

Turn quickly past the pages of Florida’s other exonerees — Orlando Boquete, Larry Bostic, Cody Davis, Luis Diaz, Chad Heins, Leroy McGee, Frank Lee Smith, Jerry Lee Townsend — and focus on the most recent exoneree, James Bain.

Bain’s picture shows him solemnly ringing our nation’s famous symbol of freedom: the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. With no prior criminal record, 54-year-old Bain was freed December 16, 2009, after new DNA testing demonstrated his innocence of a 1974 Lake Wales kidnapping and rape of a nine-year-old boy. Bain’s 35 years in prison is the longest time served by any of the 246 DNA exonerees nationwide.

Putting a face on Florida’s wrongfully incarcerated serves as a poignant reminder of their long wait for justice when errors are made by human beings working in an imperfect criminal justice system.

D’Alemberte wants to go beyond righting past wrongs in individual cases. He asks: “What kinds of measures can we adopt to try to improve our criminal justice system so we can achieve the truth more often?”

Part of the answer rests in his petition filed with the Florida Supreme Court in December and signed by 89 lawyers, to adopt by rule an Actual Innocence Commission. In a March 22 letter to D’Alemberte, Chief Justice Quince explained that while the petition is not the appropriate mechanism, the court “is very much interested in looking at the cases of actual innocence, and is considering the establishment of a commission or task force by administrative order.”

The Board of Governors in January unanimously resolved for The Florida Bar to support establishing such a commission that would help find out why innocent people are being convicted in our courts and why the truly guilty have not been caught. In a February letter to Chief Justice Peggy Quince, Sen. Haridopolos expressed his support, saying, “I am confident the Florida Legislature will do all it can to assist in the creation of an Innocence Commission.”

Similar commissions have already been established in seven states.

Common sense and a commitment to improving the administration of justice dictate that it’s time to create an innocence commission in Florida, too.