Biography
Juan Roberto Melendez spent more than seventeen years on Florida’s death row after a 1984 murder and armed-robbery conviction. His collateral attorney Martin McClain reported that the state withheld another man’s confession and that the jury foreman used Melendez’s Afro hairstyle to persuade a holdout juror to convict. The trial court granted a new trial in December 2001 after findings of suppressed evidence and ineffective assistance of counsel. The prosecution dropped the charges, and Melendez was actually released from Union Correctional Institution on January 3, 2002. An earlier armed-robbery prison term ended in July 1982 and was separate from the later death-row prosecution.
Juan Roberto Melendez spent more than seventeen years on Florida’s death row after a 1984 murder and armed-robbery conviction. His collateral attorney Martin McClain reported that the state withheld another man’s confession and that the jury foreman used Melendez’s Afro hairstyle to persuade a holdout juror to convict. The trial court granted a new trial in December 2001 after findings of suppressed evidence and ineffective assistance of counsel. The prosecution dropped the charges, and Melendez was actually released from Union Correctional Institution on January 3, 2002. An earlier armed-robbery prison term ended in July 1982 and was separate from the later death-row prosecution.
Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 78; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 79; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 80; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 81; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 82; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 83; Truly Innocent? A Review of 23 Case Histories of Inmates Released from Florida’s Death Row Since 1973, PDF page 142.
