March 25
FLORIDA:
No time for innocence----Prisoners petitioning for DNA testing have until
Oct. 1 to submit their claims. Eligibility should be broadened and the
deadline extended.
To rationalize his intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, Gov. Jeb Bush
implied the other day that even criminals get better treatment. "There's
no doubt," he said by way of example, that any court in Florida or
elsewhere would "immediately" review a prisoner's claim to have DNA
evidence exonerating him. If only it were so.
The governor must be unaware of the laws and recent history of his own
state. Prisoners convicted before DNA was routinely tested have only until
Oct. 1 to submit their claims. Those who pleaded guilty or no contest, as
even innocent people sometimes do, are ineligible. There is no money to
pay lawyers to file DNA petitions. Nearly 700 applications are backed up
and will likely run afoul of the deadline. The governor's office is
lobbying the Legislature for a constitutional amendment that, among other
things, would prevent the Supreme Court from reopening the window of
opportunity.
"There is only one vehicle, and it's dying," warns Jennifer Greenberg, the
sole lawyer for the Florida Innocence Initiative at Tallahassee, which
appealed to Bush to support legislation (HB 247) extending the deadline
and broadening eligibility.
Prisoners who don't have that limited law on their side get what happened
to Wilton Dedge. Of the 22 years Dedge spent in Florida prisons for a rape
he didn't commit, seven years passed after the New York-based Innocence
Project first applied for DNA testing on his behalf. The state of Florida
fought stubbornly to keep the DNA from being tested or admitted as
evidence, even claiming at one point that it did not matter whether Dedge
might be innocent because rules were more important.
More than simple justice depends on passage of the DNA legislation that
Rep. Phillip J. Brutus, D-North Miami, is sponsoring. Legislation that
President Bush signed last year provides federal aid to states with
effective post-conviction DNA statutes. But Florida has yet to do what the
president urged, which is to "make doubly sure no person is held to
account for a crime he or she did not commit."
Reacting to the travesty of justice that befell Dedge, committees in the
House and Senate are preparing legislation to compensate people who are
wrongfully imprisoned, as 19 states and the District of Columbia already
do. At a meeting of the House Claims Committee the other day, the attorney
general's office agreed with Dedge's lawyers that the sheriff's office and
prosecutors who put him in prison are constitutionally immune from
lawsuits, a fact that should oblige the Legislature to act.
The formula should be generous for lost income and legal expenses and
payment should be automatic upon a judge's finding that a prisoner was
actually innocent. It should not require legislative approval of each
award, as one freshman legislator unwisely proposed. That would
essentially mean a cumbersome claims bill for each person.
Sandy D'Alemberte, Dedge's advocate, reminded the committee that Florida
provided automatic payment to nursery owners whose trees had been
condemned to prevent the spread of citrus canker. Citizens whose liberty
was unjustly confiscated surely deserve the same consideration.
(source: Editorial, St. Petersburg Times)
