Aguirre-Jarquin juror warns against killing innocent man

I will never forget the day that

I learned I had a role in sending an innocent man to death row.

In 2006, I was the foreman of the jury in Seminole County that convicted Clemente Javier Aguirre-Jarquin of two murders and sentenced him to death. Aguirre spent a total of 14 years in prison, 10 of them on death row, but was exonerated from death row with new evidence of his innocence.

The part I played in Aguirre’s conviction and death sentence weighs on me. All of the jurors took our jobs seriously. At the time, it seemed clear that he committed the double-murder. We did the best we could with the evidence we were given.

Since Aguirre’s trial, I have learned that many of the lawyers for people accused of serious crimes are overloaded with too many cases and fail to investigate and present evidence that could clear their client. In Aguirre’s case, the jury did not know that his lawyer failed to request DNA testing of blood samples and multiple pieces of evidence. After trial, DNA tests excluded Aguirre and implicated the victims’ daughter and granddaughter, Samantha Williams.

I would never want another person to be sent to death row for a crime he did not commit. I also would never want another person serving jury duty to learn that he voted to send an innocent person to death and go through what I went through. Yet, based on what I know about an execution scheduled on Nov. 7, I am worried that Florida might be on its way to making an even worse mistake.

James Dailey faces execution despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence. The evidence against Aguirre was actually stronger than the evidence against Dailey, which was entirely circumstantial. No eyewitnesses or physical evidence connected Dailey to the crime. The prosecutor conceded in her closing argument that there was no physical evidence, no fingerprints, and no hair or fibers. In fact, the physical evidence that did exist excluded Dailey.

As in Aguirre’s case, another person has repeatedly confessed to the crime. Jack Pearcy has said, on at least four occasions, that he was solely responsible for the murder. One of those occasions was in the form of a sworn affidavit stating that he committed the crime and acted alone. In the affidavit, he said that he implicated Dailey to turn the police’s attention away from himself. Pearcy, the admitted killer, is currently serving a life sentence in prison.

The State beefed up its weak case against Dailey with the testimony of an unreliable “jailhouse snitch” named Paul Skalnik. Skalnik was a child sex offender who had been convicted of at least 25 crimes involving dishonesty. The jury was never told that Skalnik had been charged with lewd and lascivious behavior involving a 12-year-old girl or that this charge was dropped over the course of his cooperation in several cases. This is the kind of information that would have made a difference for jurors in weighing Skalnik’s credibility, but they never knew.

Just because the courts caught their errors in Aguirre’s case does not mean the courts will do so in Dailey’s case. So far, the Florida courts have said that procedural rules prevent them from looking at new evidence of his innocence. This makes no sense given that Florida has a history of not getting the death penalty right. Florida has the most death row exonerations of any state, at 29.

Thankfully, Gov. DeSantis is not bound by the same procedural rules. He has the power to look at all of the evidence and make certain that the State does not execute an innocent man.

Like the governor, I once held a man’s life in my hands. I know how it feels to be sure someone did the crime. I know how it feels to hear about a terrible crime and believe whoever did it deserved a death sentence. And now, for the rest of my life, I will also know just how wrong a person, a group of people, and an entire criminal justice system can be. Gov. DeSantis should walk humbly to avoid this burden.

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