JAIL HOUSE SNITCHES

The NY Times here details the story of a death penalty prosecution derailed outside of Tampa. The bloodlust of a prosecutor and detective denied, and how they took it out on an innocent man using an infamous jail house snitch who was fast becoming a professional witness.

As of this writing James Dailey is on death row in Florida for a murder that in all likelihood he didn't commit. He was sent their by a vicious, publicity hungry State Attorney and a jail house snitch who is a pedophile and has gotten away with it time and time again because of his ability to manipulate the system. 

You can say many things, but don't ever say we have the best justice system in the world. We do not. 

From the article:
It didn’t matter that Skalnik had few other details about the murder. Any questions as to his truthfulness were put to rest when Andrews called Halliday as her final witness. The detective vouched for Skalnik, testifying that the inmate had supplied him with reliable information in other cases, yielding “extremely positive results...It was with that imprimatur of credibility that jurors found Dailey guilty...

“I have placed 34 individuals in prison, including four on death row,” he boasted in a 1984 letter to Senator Lawton Chiles of Florida, in a request for favorable treatment — a number that, while inflated at the time, would ultimately prove accurate...
The full record provides a vivid picture of how jailhouse informants are used, showing which benefits Skalnik was afforded, which crimes he eluded punishment for and, most clearly, how the state attorney’s office put this witness, who was dubbed “a con man extraordinaire,” in the words of one warrant for his arrest, on the stand in cases where defendants’ lives hung in the balance...

The consequences of snitch testimony can be catastrophic. Of the 367 DNA exonerations in the United States to date, jailhouse informants played a role in nearly one in five of the underlying wrongful convictions...

Informants often end up on the stand when other evidence is weak; a case that is based on rigorous forensic work or witness testimony that can be independently corroborated does not need a snitch to paper over the gaps. The most unreliable witnesses, then, may testify in the least sound cases — and in cases in which the stakes are the highest

Dailey’s stay of execution will remain in place through Dec. 30. After that, Governor DeSantis can set a new execution date for as soon as January. When that day comes, Dailey will be asked to walk from his cell to the execution chamber, where he will lie down on the gurney. Leather restraining straps will be fastened across his body, and an IV line will be inserted into his arm. Finally, the signal will be given to the executioner to begin the flow of lethal drugs. At that moment, the State of Florida will be asking its citizens to trust that Dailey killed Shelly Boggio that night beside the dark water, and that he received a fair trial, and that justice has finally been served. It will be asking them, as it has time and time again, to believe the word of Paul Skalnik