James Dailey Faces Execution in Florida Based on Testimony of Serial Jailhouse Informant Police Called ​“Con Man Extraordinaire”

Paul Skalnik is a sex offend­er and con man whose jail­house ​“snitch” tes­ti­mo­ny was used by Florida and Texas pros­e­cu­tors to con­vict more than 37 defen­dants, includ­ing four who were sen­tenced to death. His tes­ti­mo­ny that James Dailey (pic­tured) alleged­ly con­fessed to the bru­tal 1985 stab­bing and drown­ing death of 14-year-old Shelley Boggio con­tributed to Dailey’s con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, despite the prosecution’s admis­sion that no ​“phys­i­cal evi­dence,” ​“no fin­ger­prints,” and ​“no hair or fibers” linked Dailey to the crime. 

Whether Dailey — who has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence — lives or is exe­cut­ed may depend on whether he is able to get a fed­er­al court, which grant­ed him a tem­po­rary stay of exe­cu­tion that expires on December 30, 2019, to review his claims of innocence.

A December 4, 2019 exposé by Pamela Colloff for ProPublica in part­ner­ship with the New York Times Magazine has shined a light on Skalnik’s career as a ser­i­al prison infor­mant, often obtain­ing or over­hear­ing ​“con­fes­sions” from pre­tri­al detainees who said they nev­er met or talked to him. In exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny, he was reg­u­lar­ly reward­ed by pros­e­cu­tors with favor­able treat­ment on charges rang­ing from child molesta­tion to grand theft to fraud, and nei­ther his expec­ta­tion of ben­e­fits nor the ben­e­fits them­selves were dis­closed to the defense. 

Between 1983 and 1987, the Tampa Bay Times report­ed, Skalnik obtained ​“con­fes­sions” in eight first-degree mur­der cas­es dur­ing var­i­ous prison stints in Pinellas, Florida, includ­ing four dur­ing one sev­en-month incar­cer­a­tion between January and June 1987. The arrest war­rant for that incar­cer­a­tion for grand theft described Skalnik as a ​“Con-man extraordinaire.”

At the time of Boggio’s mur­der, Dailey lived in an extra room at the home his house­mate Jack Pearcy shared with his girl­friend. Pearcy, who had a his­to­ry of vio­lence against women, had spent the after­noon and evening with Boggio. She was stabbed 31 times, and police found a knife belong­ing to Pearcy near her body. To divert blame from him­self, Pearcy told police that Dailey had killed her. 

Pearcy was tried for the crime first but received a life sen­tence. Prosecutors then sent inves­ti­ga­tors into the prison to try to obtain incul­pa­to­ry infor­ma­tion against Dailey, show­ing poten­tial wit­ness­es news sto­ries con­tain­ing details about the mur­der. Three jail­house wit­ness­es came for­ward claim­ing Dailey had con­fessed, and Pearcy — who lat­er recant­ed — claimed Dailey was the killer. The infor­mants false­ly tes­ti­fied that they had not received any ben­e­fits or favor­able treat­ment for their tes­ti­mo­ny. Each had in fact received reduced charges in exchange for their cooperation.

Skalnik pro­vid­ed the most damn­ing tes­ti­mo­ny. Claiming to have seen Dailey ​“walk­ing in the hall­ways, laugh­ing and kid­ding with oth­er inmates,” Skalnik said Dailey then ​“all of a sud­den” gave a con­fes­sion so dis­turb­ing that Skalnik found it ​“hard to com­pre­hend and to accept.” Skalnik told the jury he had seen Dailey’s eyes and heard him describe how he stabbed Boggio. He tes­ti­fied that Dailey then said: “‘She is scream­ing, star­ing at me, and would not die.’” In her clos­ing argu­ment, the pros­e­cu­tor cit­ed Skalnik’s tes­ti­mo­ny more than a dozen times, assur­ing jurors that he was ​“hon­est” and ​“reli­able.”

On April 20, 2017, Pearcy signed an affi­davit stat­ing, ​“James Dailey was not present when Shelly Boggio was killed. I alone am respon­si­ble for Shelly Boggio’s death.” On October 3, 2019, a Florida court declined to review Dailey’s claim that this con­sti­tut­ed new evi­dence of inno­cence, say­ing he should have raised the issue soon­er. Three weeks lat­er — and two weeks before his sched­uled November 7 exe­cu­tion — a fed­er­al dis­trict court grant­ed Dailey a stay of exe­cu­tion to pro­vide his new fed­er­al lawyers until December 30 to inves­ti­gate and present evi­dence sup­port­ing his claims.

Official mis­con­duct and false accu­sa­tion are the lead­ing caus­es of wrong­ful cap­i­tal con­vic­tions. A DPIC review found that at least one of those fac­tors has been present in at least 18 of the 29 cas­es since 1973 in which wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed Florida death row pris­on­ers have lat­er been exon­er­at­ed. An analy­sis by the Northwestern University School of Law Center on Wrongful Convictions of the first 111 death-row exon­er­a­tions found that false ​“snitch tes­ti­mo­ny” had con­tributed to 45.9% of those wrong­ful capital convictions.

Dailey was the fourth man sent to death row based on Skalnik’s tes­ti­mo­ny. ​“Amazing, isn’t it, that peo­ple come right up to his cell to con­fess to him?,” Dailey’s tri­al lawyer, Hank Andringa, told the Tampa Bay Times. ​“He tells a sto­ry well.” Frank Louderback, who rep­re­sent­ed the first defen­dant sen­tenced to death based upon an alleged con­fes­sion obtained by Skalnik, said ​“It’s just too much of a coin­ci­dence. It’s unusu­al, don’t you think, that he finds out who’s charged with first-degree murder?”

One month after Pearcy’s tri­al, a detec­tive vis­it­ed pris­on­ers in the unit in which Dailey was incar­cer­at­ed await­ing tri­al. Prisoners lat­er report­ed that the detec­tives had shown them news arti­cles about the mur­der and asked them if Dailey had told them any­thing about it.

One pris­on­er whom detec­tives had inter­viewed described hav­ing been shown press accounts of the mur­der. ​“I got a very uneasy feel­ing look­ing at the news­pa­per arti­cles,” Michael Sorrentino said. ​“Had I want­ed to say some­thing, or fab­ri­cate some­thing, all the tools were there to give them what­ev­er they might be looking for.”

About the same time, 18 days before his tri­al was set to begin, Dailey was trans­ferred to a new part of the jail, near Skalnik’s cell. ​“Right away, I told the sergeant, I said, ​‘Get me out of here,’” Dailey said of the move. “‘This is a damn set­up.’” Two days lat­er, Skalnik claimed that Dailey had con­fessed to the murder.