Rights to DNA testing are stalled

BY MARC CAPUTO

TALLAHASSEE - Hardened by spending 22 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit, Wilton Dedge started to break down Wednesday when he urged state lawmakers to allow all inmates the right to a DNA test to prove their innocence.

The measure has broad support -- from the Florida Supreme Court, Gov. Jeb Bush, a future Senate president and prosecutors and public defenders -- but the Criminal Justice Committee of the Florida House decided to take things slowly by debating the bill without a vote.

Dedge, a 44-year-old from Cocoa who was recently awarded $2 million for his wrongful incarceration, just wanted to know why.

''Can we all agree that DNA testing needs to be done in Florida on inmates? Can we agree that . . . there should be no deadline on testing?'' he asked. ''We've already seen 174 people released in the United States'' because of DNA testing, he said.

Committee chairman Dick Kravitz, a Jacksonville Republican, slightly nodded his head but didn't answer Dedge.

Later, Kravitz explained that the complex nature of the bill required a question-and-answer session, known as a workshop, before a vote. A previous House committee already voted on it unanimously, as did a Senate committee Wednesday. Both votes required no workshop. Kravitz promised his committee would vote on the bill soon.

The pressure to act increased Monday when the fifth person to be exonerated by DNA evidence in Florida, 45-year-old Alan Crotzer, was freed by a Tampa judge after spending 24 years wrongly imprisoned for a shotgun robbery and the rape of a girl and her mother.

OPPOSITION TO BILL

The Republican bill sponsors, Sen. Alex Villalobos of Miami and Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff of Fort Lauderdale, said other representatives whom they wouldn't name oppose portions of the bill, in part because they don't want to appear soft on crime and don't want to allow inmates to tie up the court system with a new type of petition.

The proposal officially eliminates a deadline for inmates who seek the tests. The deadline first passed in October 2003, but the Florida Supreme Court extended it, to the consternation of some conservatives who thought it was judicial over-reaching. The Legislature then extended the deadline until October 2005. One day before that deadline was due to expire, the high court again delayed it. The deadline is now set to expire in July.

TESTING RIGHTS

The bill seeks to give any inmate -- even those who confessed to a crime -- the right to seek the testing.

''There already have been seven people released in the United States who were wrongfully convicted and confessed to the crime,'' Dedge said. ``Twenty-two years ago, I wouldn't have believed this. But after what I lived through, I know that it happens. Something needs to be changed.''

Dedge and advocates with the nonprofit Florida Innocence Initiative, which aided him and Crotzer, took issue with an analysis by House staff members who estimated the measure would cost upward of $2 million a year to pay for state crime-lab costs. The Innocence Initiative's chief lawyer, Jenny Greenberg, pointed out that her group and others have shouldered the costs of the testing because private labs perform a more accurate test, particularly in rape cases.

House members debated the cost issue far more than their more moderate Senate counterparts. Greenberg said the group has sorted through about 800 cases, is actively pursuing 53 more and has no idea how many more inmates will be good candidates for the tests.

The concept of DNA tests for inmates was controversial when first proposed, and prosecutors fought it at first. Though now many support the idea, in Dedge's case the Seminole-Brevard state attorney's office fought his right to get a test for three years. Aided in part by the Florida Innocence Initiative, Dedge finally got tested and was proven innocent.

PAINFUL EXPERIENCE

Dedge said no one should have to experience that kind of pain.

''In 1988 I read about DNA testing, and since then I tried to get testing done. But it didn't happen until 1999, and it proved that it wasn't me. But I spent three more years in prison,'' Dedge said, choking up before the House committee.

Later in the day, before the Senate's Criminal Justice Committee, Dedge was all smiles. The debate in the Senate focused more on how to ensure that every inmate gets a DNA test -- to prove their guilt as well as innocence.

''This is just plain old truth, and it leads you to wherever it leads you. And we shouldn't be concerned about who got their feelings hurt and who won or who lost,'' said Villalobos, who is slated to become Senate president in two years. ``What matters is, if you have something that could definitely prove the right person or the wrong person, it's just appalling that you wouldn't do that.''