A plea to learn from past injustices.

• Author: Diner, Jesse H.
• Position: President's page

Flip through the pages of Florida's scrapbook of the wrongfully incarcerated. The first page is the first person in Florida to receive compensation and an apology from the state in 2005, after being exonerated by DNA evidence. It's a close-up of the blond-haired, soft-spoken Wilton Dedge, as he bowed his head and cried softly, struggling to tell legislators about all the simple joys of life and moments with his family lost when he was arrested at 20 and wrongfully convicted twice for a brutal rape, spending half of his life locked in prison.

Dedge's case in the 18th Judicial Circuit was built on the testimony of a notorious jailhouse snitch; a discredited dog handler claiming his dog could track cold scents months and years later; and a 17-year-old victim who described her rapist as six feet tall and 180-200 pounds, though Dedge is a five-foot, five-inch tall slender man. Jurors also disregarded alibi testimony from six coworkers at an auto body shop who said Dedge was at work at the time of the crime.

Finally, after a 16-year legal fight, newly developed Y-Chromosome DNA testing conclusively excluded Dedge as the rapist, and Dedge walked out of the Brevard County Jail a free man.

Turn the page to another case from the same circuit: William Dillon, sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder at age 21 and now a 50-year-old free man, waiting to see if he will receive compensation from a claims bill sponsored by Senate President-designate Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, and the entire Brevard County delegation.

Sandy D'Alemberte, who represented both Dedge and Dillon, working with the Innocence Project of Florida, describes Dillon's case as filled with lies, bogus evidence from the same "charlatan" dog handler, eye-witness identification that didn't match Dillon, an ignored alibi, prosecutorial misconduct, and recanted testimony from a key witness having sexual relations with the sheriff's lead investigator.

A third page in this scrapbook of Florida's exonerees shows the photo of Gov. Charlie Crist embracing a teary-eyed Alan Crotzer in 2008, after signing into law a bill to compensate Crotzer $1.25 million for the 24 years, six months, 13 days, and four hours he was wrongfully incarcerated for 1981 rapes he did not commit. Later, the governor gave Crotzer a full pardon and expunged his prior convictions (for stealing Busch Light from a convenience store when he was 18 and buying pot from a prison guard). With his fresh start in life...