For a moratorium: Florida's death row holds innocence hostage

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.

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