Not even charitable spin from a special prosecutor can mask the terrible decisions that were made by police, prosecutors and a local judge in the celebrated missing-baby case revolving around Steve and Marlene Aisenberg.

Hillsborough County Sheriff Cal Henderson needs to answer for his two rogue detectives and their supervisors whose tactics caused the case to collapse.

Then-prosecutor Eric Myers, now a county judge, needs to explain why his sloppiness then doesn't affect his fitness to hold his current job.

And then-Chief Judge F. Dennis Alvarez, who approved bugging of the Aisenberg home, needs to answer for failing to act as a backstop to an unjust prosecution.

Prosecutor Norman Wolfinger, the state attorney for Brevard and Seminole counties, concluded Wednesday that Detectives Linda Burton and William Blake committed no crime in their handling of the bugging of the Aisenberg home.

We'll let the lawyers parse criminal intent. But as a practical matter, fair prosecution assumes a level of competence by the state. Defendants have a right to expect police and prosecutors to know their jobs. "These obligations," Wolfinger wrote, "were not mere formalities."

But almost everyone on the state's side bungled the case. The two detectives had never done a wire or oral intercept before, did not know the requirements of the law and never made clear who was acting as the lead authority on the case. Myers, the prosecutor, blamed the detectives, even though the state attorney had "the legal obligation to act independently of the requesting law enforcement agency." Asked if he ensured the eavesdropping law fit the application in the Aisenberg case, Myers responded: "I did not at that time, no."

Then Alvarez read, authorized and signed an eavesdropping order for three alleged crimes "that were not authorized (by) Florida Statutes." His added failure -- failing to recognize "that the affidavits failed to put forth any details" of how the Aisenbergs allegedly committed a crime -- were "basic legal concepts" the judge should have caught. Wolfinger also called attention to the remarkable power the police sought -- to enter a home, plant a bug and intercept conversations between a husband and wife who police believed "might be responsible for the disappearance or murder of a child."

Federal authorities dropped the case after a U.S. magistrate blasted the tapes and the conduct of the detectives. Henderson's response to the special prosecutor's report will show what kind of office the sheriff is running. Myers should face a professional review. If Alvarez, as rumored, runs for Tampa mayor, the public should question him, too.

Serious mistakes deserve serious consequences, and we've yet to see anyone held accountable.

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