Freed from Death Row

Juan Roberto Melendez urges students to fight against capital punishment

By Lori Craig

Juan Roberto Melendez spent 17 years, eight months and one day on death row after being wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery.

Juan Roberto Melendez, freed after spending  nearly 18 years on death row, speaks at USC.

After the state of Florida dropped its case against him, Melendez was completing some paperwork in the prison office when a woman filled him in on some bigger news: He was being released that same day.

“I do not know if you watch cartoons, and [if you’ve seen] this cartoon character,” Melendez said. “He takes a [sledgehammer], and hits the other one upside the head with it — boom! And you can see that knot that comes straight up. Then he has a ring of stars that’s running around his head. He’s in a state of shock, but he’s smiling.

“That’s how I was. In a state of shock, but smiling.”

Melendez spoke to USC Gould School of Law students Oct. 17 at an event sponsored by the Latino Law Students Association and ACLU@USC.

He is one of 141 former death row inmates set free since 1973.

“His story really highlights the myriad of problems that plague the death penalty system, in particular going after people who are innocent and its unfair and unequal application on people who are of a lower socioeconomic class, and who are of racial minorities,” said Evan Langinger ’14, academic chair of LLSA.

Melendez, who was born in New York but spent his childhood in Puerto Rico, described for students the bewilderment he felt when FBI agents arrested him during his lunch break from a construction job. A native Spanish speaker, Melendez also described his confusion at being extradited to Florida, where he was assigned an English-speaking public defender but not provided an interpreter.

In the absence of physical evidence tying him to the crime, prosecutors relied largely on the testimony of a man Melendez said held a grudge against him. The man, who struck a deal with the state in exchange for his testimony, claimed he dropped Melendez off at the crime scene and picked him up an hour and a half later. Despite Melendez’s multiple alibi witnesses, he was convicted.

“Thursday they found me guilty,” Melendez said. “Friday — the same week — they sentenced me to death. And the judge complained that it was taking too long. When they sentenced me to death, my heart got full of hate.”

Bitter and scared, Melendez was taken to death row. His six-by-nine-foot cell was on the first of three levels containing seven cells each.

“The place was horrifying, it was dark, it was cold,” Melendez said, detailing the infestation of rats and cockroaches. “Breakfast — oh, that’s the worst one. Not because of the food; I love grits and eggs. But because they come early, they never wake you up. And they place that breakfast tray in the slat you have in your cell door, like a big mail slot. And if you wait five seconds to get up and get that plate, forget about it. You ran out of luck.

“You see, the roaches would beat you to it. They’re waiting for breakfast, too.”

During his incarceration, Melendez learned to speak, read and write English, tutored by his fellow inmates. He enjoyed frequent letters from his mother, five aunts and chance pen pals from across the country.

But his death sentenced weighed heavily on him, and after 10 years, “I was tired of it. I [wanted] out of there. But the only way out is to commit suicide.

“You’re dead, but you’re free — that’s what the demons used to tell me.”

Melendez went so far as to fashion a rope from a black plastic garbage bag, but says a vivid dream of his childhood in Puerto Rico, swimming in the warm Caribbean Sea with his mother standing on the shore, changed his mind.
Several of Melendez’s friends on death row took their own lives. Others had their sentences carried out.

“I can hear this [bass] sound: ‘Mmm, mmm, mmm,’” Melendez said, imitating the sound of the electric chair powering up. “That still stays in my mind. And I know precisely the time when they burned the life out of him because the lights [flickered] on and off. And I could not stop it.”

Melendez’s conviction was upheld through multiple appeals. After 16 years in prison, his attorney at the time re-investigated the evidence against him. In a box from Melendez’s trial attorney was the taped confession by the real killer.

A judge ordered a new trial, in a 72-page opinion in which she “chastised the prosecutor for the way he handled the case, chastised the lawyer’s investigator for the way he investigated the case, and chastised … my trial defense lawyer,” Melendez said. “And she let it [be known] that the case [caused] terrible damage, and implied that you have an innocent man on death row.”

Prosecutors declined to try Melendez a second time.

As he exited the prison with $100 from the state of Florida in his pocket, Melendez encountered a horde of reporters. Inundated with questions, Melendez had no trouble telling a reporter about what he wanted to do with his newfound freedom: savor the simple things.

“I told her, ‘I want to see the moon, I want to see the stars,’” Melendez said. “‘I want to walk on grass, on dirt. I want to hold a little baby in my arms and play with him.’ Of course, I told her, ‘I want to talk to some beautiful women.’”

Since his exoneration, Melendez has toured the country, telling his story. He’s also promoting Prop. 34, which would eliminate the death penalty in California.

“I dream and I pray to God every day that in my time, I can see the death penalty abolished,” Melendez said. “You’re a part of my dream now. People need to know, it [does] not deter crime. People need to know that it’s racist. People need to know that it costs too much. People need to know that it’s cruel and unnecessary. We have alternatives. The most important thing that people need to know and learn is this: As long as the state of California has it … there will always be a risk of [executing] an innocent one. And we can always release an innocent man from prison, we have no problems with that, but we can never, and I repeat, we can never release an innocent man from the grave.”