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Inmate from Tampa
to be released after 17 years on Death Row
By Vickie Chachere
The Associated
Press
Posted 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. |
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Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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