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Poll shows tightening GOP gubernatorial race

TALLAHASSEE - Attorney General Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher are statistically even in their bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, while Sen. Bill Nelson would defeat Rep. Katherine Harris in 2006 if that election were held today, a new poll shows.

In a survey of 430 registered Republican Florida voters taken Aug. 23-29 by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, 39 percent said they backed Gallagher, compared with 36 percent for Crist. The difference was within the margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, but a marked change from Quinnipiac's late June survey showing Crist with 43 percent to Gallagher's 31 percent.

A broader survey of 1,187 voters found 57 percent favoring Democrat Nelson in the Senate race to 33 percent for Harris, the only declared Republican in that race to date. That sample's margin of error was plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

Half of the 379 Democrats surveyed said they leaned to "don't know" in their party's gubernatorial contest. U.S. Rep. Jim Davis of Tampa received the backing of 19 percent; former state Democratic chairman Scott Maddox of Tallahassee, 16 percent; and state Sen. Rod Smith of Alachua, 11 percent.

PORT ST. JOHN - A Brevard County man wrongly imprisoned for 22 years for a rape he did not commit cannot sue the state for compensation, a judge has ruled.

Dismissing Wilton Dedge's lawsuit, Leon Circuit Judge William Gary said the state is protected from such lawsuits, and the matter was "clearly the province of the legislative branch of our government, not the judicial branch."

Dedge, 43, was released from his life sentence in August 2004 after advanced DNA testing proved he did not commit the crime. Lawmakers vowed to make restitution, but did not during the legislative session ending in May. Dedge and his parents then sued.

"The Legislature told us to go to the courts, and now the court is telling us to go to the Legislature," he said. "It's like a pingpong ball."

FRANKLIN, N.C. - Vassar B. Carlton, a retired Florida Supreme Court Justice, died in a local hospital of natural causes Wednesday. He was 92.

In 1941 he was elected a Brevard County judge at age 27. He was elected a circuit judge in 1954 and elected to the Florida Supreme Court in 1968. He was chosen as chief justice in 1973 and retired in 1974.