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| Exonerated La. Inmate Gets $200,000 for Years Spent in Prison |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 02/10/2003 |
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A year after being released from Florida's Death Row, Juan Melendez said recently he is a living example of what's wrong with capital punishment. Melendez, who lived nearly 18 years with a death sentence, told reporters he's also an example of the success of the state legal offices that file appeals for Death Row inmates. Gov. Jeb Bush has proposed closing the offices of the Capital Collateral Representative Counsel. Bush instead wants to expand the state's use of private lawyers and cut overall funding for Death Row attorneys from $10 million to $6 million. 'If it wouldn't have been for CCR, I would have been a dead man today,' Melendez said. Melendez spoke at a news conference by Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, which brought him back to Florida from Puerto Rico to offer support to Rudolph Holton, who was released from Florida's Death Row last week. Melendez walked off Death Row in early January 2002. He was freed after prosecutors in Central Florida's Polk County decided they would not go ahead with a new trial after his conviction was overturned. The prosecutors said they no longer had enough evidence. Melendez was convicted on witness testimony for the 1983 killing of cosmetology school owner Delbert Baker, even though there was no physical evidence linking Melendez to the murder. Holton walked off Death Row last week after prosecutors in Tampa said they didn't have enough evidence to retry him for the 1986 murder of a Tampa teen. He was the 25th state Death Row inmate to be freed in the last 30 years. |
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