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Find a way to compensate Dedge, now

By MARTIN DYCKMAN
Published February 20, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - Legislators should be careful with the public's money, but there's such a thing as being too cheap with it. The difference shows in how House Speaker Allan Bense wants to treat Wilton Dedge.

Bense says Dedge should sue someone before asking the Legislature to pay him and his parents for the 22 years he spent in prison for a rape he did not commit.

He might as well tell him to try get the money from Leona Helmsley or Donald Trump. It would be next to impossible for Dedge to get a suit heard in court. It would be even harder to win it, and he could be another 22 years older if he did.

When will Florida stop giving this citizen a shameful runaround?

It bears remembering that Dedge would have been free seven years sooner if the state had agreed to DNA testing when the Innocence Project first intervened on his behalf.

But the state kept saying no. First, because there was no law permitting DNA testing. Secondly, because the law was passed after the courts granted him the tests. All along, the state argued that his possible innocence was not as important to the people of Florida as the "finality" of judgment.

When the courts finally put an end to the sadistic ordeal, the DNA conclusively proved him innocent.

There was another twist that Franz Kafka might have scripted: Because Dedge walked out of jail as if he had never been convicted, he did not get even the $100 the state provides to guilty people who finish their terms.

Unlike 19 other states (a number that keeps growing), Florida has no law, rule, or precedent for compensating someone like Dedge. Senate President Tom Lee agrees that there ought to be a law and has asked the Judiciary Committee to come up with one in the context of what happened to Dedge. As Lee wisely noted, "There are going to be others."

One reasonable alternative would be to establish a formula for each year of wrongful imprisonment and for the recovery of legal expenses. Dedge's father took $57,000 out of his retirement funds, and had to pay the IRS an additional $17,000 in early withdrawal penalties. Upon a court order establishing someone's innocence, the state ought to just simply write a check.

But it will take some time to work all that out. Most people would agree that Dedge and his family deserve something now.

Not Bense. He said Dedge should "explore all the local options before all the taxpayers of Florida participate.

"It's our policy," he said.

Doesn't that have a familiar ring to it? Fairness doesn't matter. Rules do. Even if there are no rules.

The policy Bense has in mind relates to the usual run of claims against the state: Medical malpractice at a university hospital. Or a collision involving a state vehicle. Florida has waived its "sovereign immunity" - i.e., the king can do no wrong - only up to $100,000 per person. More than that depends on the Legislature passing a claims bill, which it won't consider without a court decision finding fault and fixing damages.

But nothing about the Dedge affair is that kind of case. Bense should read the memorandum of law from Sandy D'Alemberte, Dedge's pro bono counsel.

Is Dedge supposed to sue the victim who mistakenly identified him? How much more cruelty does the state want? "She was the victim of a violent crime and the knowledge that her testimony sent an innocent man to prison must weigh heavily on her," D'Alemberte wrote. "There is simply no interest in seeking damages from her."

The Brevard County Sheriff's Office? Police "enjoy a substantial common law immunity" for their mistakes. Not necessarily for a deliberate attempt to frame someone they know to be innocent, but this isn't that kind of case either.

The State Attorney's Office? It made lots of dumb, even arrogant, errors, but an even stricter rule applies. Prosecutors have "absolute immunity." The criminal courts couldn't function under a slew of civil suits. So says the U.S. Supreme Court.

There's nothing the courts could do for Dedge.

Moreover, says D'Alemberte, "it seems a bit pointless to bring a law suit against a state attorney who, as in this case, has publicly stated that he believes Wilton Dedge should be compensated."

An innocent man lost 22 years of his life. To refuse him compensation is not just cheap. It is wrong.

Martin Dyckman's e-mail address is dyckman@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 20, 2005, 00:53:18]