It’s likely James Dailey is innocent of murder, so DeSantis should not send him to his death
Aman on Florida’s Death Row is awaiting execution for a crime he almost certainly didn’t commit. The only one who can save him is Gov. Ron DeSantis.
James Dailey is the inmate. In 1987, he was convicted of the horrible murder of a Pinellas County teenager named Shelly Boggio, who was stabbed 31 times and drowned.
An acquaintance of Dailey, Jack Pearcy, is serving a life term for the crime. Pearcy had a history of violence toward women, was the last person to be seen with Shelly and admitted to stabbing her once.
But he blamed Dailey for carrying out the killing. No physical evidence or eyewitness account supported that accusation.
A three-tour veteran of Vietnam with a only a barroom fight on his record, Dailey insisted he was asleep in a house he shared with Pearcy when his roommate left with the girl. Pearcy had befriended the girl earlier in the day.
To nail down a verdict against Dailey, prosecutors turned to one of their favorite jailhouse snitches, a man named Paul Skalnik. His photo is the only thing missing when you look up the word “scumbag” in the dictionary.
By the state’s own admission, Skalnik is “a con artist of the highest degree.” He is also a thief, swindler, sex offender, parole violator and compulsive liar who has repeatedly slithered out of trouble by ratting on other inmates and cutting deals.
For some peculiar reason, jailed suspects will spontaneously admit their guilt to Skalnik, who then scurries to prosecutors with the details. Several men ended up on Death Row after juries heard Skalnik’s vivid recounting of these miracle confessions.
One was James Dailey, who says he never even met him. Skalnik claimed he was strolling past Dailey’s cell one day, when Dailey called him over and began describing how Shelly Boggio kept screaming while he stabbed her.
Why on Earth would Dailey, if guilty, confide in a total stranger? Skalnik said Dailey thought he was a private investigator.
Prosecutors and police detectives played along with that absurd narrative, and slimy Skalnik was the final witness in Dailey’s trial. He was the third jailhouse informant to take the stand, and his testimony was by far the most powerful.
Dailey was sentenced to death on Aug. 7, 1987.
Five days later, Skalnik walked out of jail. Facing 20 years for grand theft — and a known flight risk — he’d been freed on his own recognizance as a reward for testifying against Dailey.
Not surprisingly, he fled. After resuming a busy criminal life in Texas, he was extradited to Florida, where, ironically, he accused prosecutors of coaching him on how to testify about those dubious jailhouse confessions.
They cut another deal and sent him back to Texas to serve time. He got out, sexually assaulted a 15year-old girl and spent 10 years in prison. Then he moved to Massachusetts and went right back to stealing and scamming.
Skalnik, who is now in a nursing home, says all his testimony as a snitch was truthful. Dailey is running out of time, and hope, on Death Row.
Jack Pearcy, who admitted stabbing Shelly
Boggio, has changed his version of the crime. For a while he continued to blame Dailey, but in 2017 he signed an affidavit swearing that he alone killed the girl, and that Dailey wasn’t present.
But Pearcy declined to testify in court, stating it might affect his chances for future parole.
In September, DeSantis signed another death warrant for Dailey and, days later, the Florida Supreme Court refused to grant a new trial. In October, though, a federal judge issued a temporary stay of execution.
Last month, the New York Times and ProPublica published a devastatingly detailed chronicle of Skalnik’s awful crimes and how cleverly he worked the snitch game for eager prosecutors in Dailey’s case and others.
Everyone involved knew Skalnik was a manipulative weasel, yet they played along. From 1981 to 1987, he testified or gave information in more than three dozen cases in the Clearwater area, most of which ended in convictions or guilty pleas.
To this day, the Pinellas State Attorney’s Office says it has no reason to believe Skalnik lied about all those jailhouse confessions he claims to have heard.
A few weeks ago, Jack Pearcy — the man who admitted stabbing Shelly Boggio — again asserted Dailey’s innocence in a new court filing. However, the stay of execution expired Dec. 30.
DeSantis is now free to set a new date for Dailey to die. “This has been litigated over and over and over,” the governor said in September “and so at some point you need to do justice.”
Sending a man to his grave on the worthless word of Paul Skalnik wouldn’t be justice. It would be a shameful travesty.