Seventeen years, eight months and one day.

Juan Melendez spent that portion of his life on Florida’s death row. Imprisoned from 1984 until his exoneration in 2002, he swung between anger and despair, learning to read, write and speak English from other death row inmates, at times contemplating suicide. He credits his survival and release to faith and to a couple of miracles.

On his release Jan. 3, 2002, he became the 99^th death row inmate in the U.S. to be exonerated and released since 1973.

Melendez spoke to students at the University of Mary on Thursday as part of campus activities surrounding the production of “Dead Man Walking.” The convocation was moved to the McDowall Activities Center because of the numbers of people planning to attend.

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Puerto Rico, Melendez started cutting sugar cane as a teen and worked as a migrant worker in the U.S. He is still proud of that work, he said, and counts Cesar Chavez as his hero.

While working in Pennsylvania, Melendez was arrested by FBI agents and extradited to Florida on a murder charge.

Knowing little English and “naive of the law,”he said, he waived extradition proceedings on the assumption that since he was not a killer, it was the thing to do.

“How wrong I was,” he said.

Within a week, a jury was selected - 11 white, one African-American, no Hispanics - he was tried, convicted and sentenced to death, based on the evidence of a police informant and one other person who struck a deal with prosecutors, he said. No physical evidence linked him to the crime.

Melendez was left with “a heart full of hate,” he said, for the judge, the jury, the prosecutor and his defense attorney.

From then on, he lived as one of the condemned men on Florida’s death row. From “the worst of the worst” he lived among, he was taught to read and write, to speak English, he said. Here, if you didn’t grab your breakfast quick, the roaches beat you to it, he said; rats crept up to share the warmth of the prison blanket.

“I was real scared in there,” he said.

Ten years into his sentence, he came as close to suicide as to make a trade - the usual swap was cigarette rolling papers or stamps - for a garbage bag that inmates learned could be rolled into a noose.

He chucked it under his bed to think about it, he said; that night, he dreamed of dolphins leaping, of his childhood, of an old lady waving - that would be his mother, he knew.

When he woke, he flushed the bag.

“I grabbed at all dreams as a sign of hope,” he said. “God said, ‘You’ve got to trust me.’ “

Melendez guesses it took 17 years, eight months and one day to change the man he was.

His mother, “Catholic to the bones,” prayed for a miracle and told him to put his trust in God, he said.

Although Melendez’s conviction and death sentence were upheld on appeal three times by the Florida Supreme Court, in September 2000, 16 years after he was convicted and sentenced to death, a long-forgotten transcript of a taped confession by the real killer was discovered in his file. Ultimately it was discovered that the real killer made statements to no less than 16 individuals either directly confessing to the murder or stating that Melendez was not involved.

In a 72-page opinion, in which she overturned Melendez’s conviction and death sentence and ordered a new trial, Judge Barbara Fleischer chastised the prosecutor for withholding crucial evidence. Without admitting any wrongdoing, the state of Florida declined to pursue a new trial against Melendez because one of its key witnesses had recanted and the other had died.

Melendez tried to describe to students the moment when he learned he was to be set free:

“You ever watch cartoons?” he asked. Picture a cartoon character hit on the head, seeing stars, but smiling.

“That was me,” he said.

As he returned to death row to gather his belongings to leave, the rest of the inmates called out advice: “Don’t get into trouble out there.” “Don’t forget about us.” “Take care of your mama.”

Then he heard one handclap, then another, and another. Applause.

“They were happy for me,”he said.

He walked out into a crowd of reporters, who asked him some silly questions, he said, including, “What do you want to do now?”

“See the moon. See the stars,” he told them. “Walk on the grass. Hold a baby in my arms. Find some pretty women.”

Since his release, Melendez has traveled throughout the U.S. speaking about his experience. Between engagements, he works in a plantain field in Puerto Rico and counsels troubled youth. He is a board member of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the Journey of Hope . . . From Violence to Healing.

“I pray to see the death penalty abolished in my time,”he said. “Killing is wrong everywhere.”

(Reach Karen Herzog at 250-8267 or karen.herzog@;bismarcktribune.com.)

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2005/11/18/news/local/105688.txt