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Questions about a snitch

Justice will not be done in the Wilton Dedge case until there is an investigation into how prosecutors allowed a sleazy jailhouse thug to frame him.

Clarence Zacke, the jailhouse snitch whose perjury kept Wilton Dedge behind bars for a rape he didn't commit, won't be getting out of prison after all. A Brevard County jury convicted Zacke of repeatedly raping an adopted daughter when she was a child in the 1970s. She went to police on hearing he was to be freed in March. He now has five consecutive life sentences.

Dedge, meanwhile, has $2-million in compensation approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Jeb Bush, who graciously apologized to him on behalf of the state.

But the score remains far from settled. Not just Dedge, but all the people of Florida are waiting to hear why Brevard County prosecutors allowed a sleaze like Zacke to frame anyone, and whether others contributed to his perjury.

The implications are horrific. In much the same way, Zacke's testimony was instrumental in sending Gerald Stano to the electric chair. Did he lie in that case too?

Zacke's perjury against Dedge - that the younger man had boasted to him of committing rape and threatened to harm the complaining witness - was exposed last year when DNA testing conclusively exonerated Dedge.

But that was more than 20 years after Dedge's retrial, at which prosecutors had relied on Zacke to put Dedge back in prison with a harsher sentence - for life - than the 30-year term that an appeals court had overturned.

The motives for Zacke's lies were transparent. He got 120 years shaved off his 180-year sentences by testifying against other prisoners and he admitted that he was angling for parole by informing on Dedge.

Among the unanswered questions:

How could prosecutors in Brevard County ask any jury to believe a thug like Zacke? His confessed crimes included being an accomplice to the murder of an assistant state attorney's brother and a plot to kill witnesses against him. When Zacke sought parole, prosecutors opposed it on the grounds that their star witness was a manipulative liar who should not be trusted.

How did Zacke and Dedge happen to be the only two occupants of the prison transport van where Zacke claimed Dedge discussed the rape with him? Did anyone representing the state arrange that? Did anyone prompt Zacke on what Dedge was supposed to say?

Although Zacke supposedly was bound for a court hearing at the time, there is no record of it being held. Was that a sham?

The prosecutors connected with the Dedge and Stano cases are still lawyers. One is a judge. They may all be blameless, but that cannot be determined without a thorough investigation. The Florida Bar and the Judicial Qualifications Commission, whose disciplinary jurisdictions are not bound by any statute of limitations, are the proper agencies to pursue the remaining issues in this deeply troubling story. If they cannot see their duties clearly, the Florida Supreme Court should direct them.

[Last modified December 30, 2005, 00:57:15]