Florida Supreme Court Denies Challenge to Death-Row Prisoner James Dailey’s Conviction, Finds Evidence of Innocence ​‘Immaterial’ or ​‘Inadmissible’

Calling his evi­dence of inno­cence either imma­te­r­i­al or inad­mis­si­ble, the Florida Supreme Court on September 23, 2021 denied death-row pris­on­er James Dailey​’s (pic­tured) post-con­vic­tion chal­lenge to his con­vic­tion for the 1985 mur­der of a teenage girl.

By a vote of 6 – 1, the court upheld Dailey’s con­vic­tion, rul­ing that a sworn dec­la­ra­tion by Dailey’s co-defen­dant Jack Pearcy that he alone had com­mit­ted the mur­der was inad­mis­si­ble and could not pro­vide a legal basis for a new tri­al. The court also reject­ed Dailey’s claim that pros­e­cu­tors know­ing­ly elicit­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny from their lead wit­ness, Paul Skalnik, that Skalnik had nev­er been charged with any crime of vio­lence and then failed to cor­rect Skalnik’s tes­ti­mo­ny that he had nev­er faced charges of rape or mur­der and had ​“no phys­i­cal vio­lence in my life.” The court said that Dailey’s dis­cov­ery that his pros­e­cu­tor had writ­ten notes about Skalnik’s tes­ti­mo­ny in which he crossed out the words ​“sex­u­al assault(s)” did not con­sti­tute new evi­dence because Dailey was pre­vi­ous­ly aware of the notes, though not their author, and Skalnik had been impeached on other matters.

Justice Jorge Labarga stren­u­ous­ly dis­sent­ed, remind­ing his col­leagues that the Florida Supreme Court had fre­quent­ly upheld the death sen­tences and con­vic­tions of peo­ple who were lat­er exon­er­at­ed. Citing Florida’s 30 death-row exon­er­a­tions — the most of any state — Labarga wrote, ​“Thirty peo­ple would have even­tu­al­ly been put to death for mur­ders they did not com­mit. This num­ber of exon­er­a­tions, the high­est in the nation, affirms why it is so impor­tant to get this case right.”

Labarga also drew atten­tion to the unre­li­a­bil­i­ty of jail­house infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny, which was the basis of Dailey’s con­vic­tion, writ­ing that Dailey’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence ​“exist under a cloud of unre­li­able inmate tes­ti­mo­ny.” He argued that the risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent man over­came the judiciary’s inter­est in final­i­ty: ​“While final­i­ty in judi­cial pro­ceed­ings is impor­tant to the func­tion of the judi­cial branch, that inter­est can nev­er over­whelm the imper­a­tive that the death penal­ty not be wrongly imposed.”

An edi­to­r­i­al in the Sun Sentinel echoed Justice Labarga’s argu­ments, stat­ing that the six jus­tices who vot­ed to uphold Dailey’s con­vic­tion ​“have no qualms about exe­cut­ing a man whose con­vic­tion depends total­ly on the word of untrust­wor­thy jail­house infor­mants.” The edi­to­r­i­al also high­light­ed the unfair­ness of Dailey’s and Pearcy’s dis­pro­por­tion­ate sen­tences: ​“Dailey’s is a case of two sim­i­lar defen­dants with gross­ly dis­parate fates. The one whose guilt is not in dis­pute is serv­ing life by the grace of a mer­ci­ful judge and jury. The oth­er, Dailey, would not have been con­vict­ed but for the dubi­ous tes­ti­mo­ny of three jail­house infor­mants.” It cites data from the National Registry of Exonerations show­ing that false tes­ti­mo­ny from jail­house infor­mants con­tributed to near­ly a quar­ter (23%) of death-row exon­er­a­tions. The Sun Sentinel called for Dailey’s death sen­tence to be com­mut­ed, writ­ing that ​“the state has failed for 34 years to prove beyond a rea­son­able doubt that he is guilty.”