A Tampa judge has granted a new trial to a man on Florida's Death Row for 17 years.

The decision may well be a sign of things to come in another case now being scrutinized by U.S. District Judge Norman Roettger in Fort Lauderdale. The reason: Both cases involve prosecutorial misconduct -- the withholding of evidence that misled the juries.

On Wednesday, Circuit Court Judge Barbara Fleischer ordered a new trial for Juan Melendez, convicted in 1984 for the murder of Auburndale hairdresser Del Baker.

The state withheld ``evidence favorable to the accused . . . which raises the question, in its absence, if the defendant received a fair trial,'' wrote the judge.

In 1983, Baker's throat was slit in his salon. As he lay bleeding, he was shot in the head. State witnesses David Falcon and John Berrien named Juan Melendez as the murderer.

Fleischer found that Berrien's trial testimony repeatedly contradicted the sworn statement he gave prosecutor Hardy Pickard during an interview -- a statement Pickard failed to disclose to either the defense or the jury.

Furthermore, wrote the judge, Pickard misled the jury about Falcon's reason for testifying against Melendez, saying that Falcon had ``nothing to gain by his testimony.'' Falcon escaped charges for violently breaking into a residence, in exchange for his testimony.

Prosecutor Pickard refused to comment about the decision. He also declined comment on a similar case being scrutinized by federal judge Roettger.

In this case, which put Billy Kelley on Florida's Death Row in 1984 for the 1966 murder of Charles Von Maxcy of Sebring, Pickard was also the prosecutor. As in the Melendez case, Pickard told the jury that a witness against Kelley had ``nothing to gain by his testimony.'' In so doing, Pickard withheld information from the jury that showed the witness had been offered immunity from prosecution for a string of crimes in exchange for testimony.