Juan Roberto Melendez
87
“She said, ‘You don’t know what’s going on, do you? You’re going to be released today.’ “How it is when a cartoon character gets hit in the head with a sledgehammer and stars start circling around his head and he’s in a state of shock—that’s what it was like. My Mama knew I was going to be released before I did. My attorneys had phoned her. They don’t tell you ahead of time, because they don’t know how you will react. “When they were taking me back to my cell, the guards were calling me Mr. Melendez. I liked that. “At eight o’clock that night, my cell door opened. I was scared. There were three guards and the captain of the prison. I did not trust them. I turned around for the handcu=s. ‘No cu=s,’ the captain said. ‘Mr. Melendez is a free man.’ “Walking down death row, I was smiling, but the tears were streaming down my face. I was happy, but I was sad too, because I was leaving my friends. ‘Don’t get in trouble out there. Take care of your Mama,’ one of the inmates said when I passed his cell. He was crying, too. They were all pretty much telling me the same thing and wishing me good luck. Then someone clapped and then there was another clap and another clap, and then the whole cellblock was clapping. The guards got mad and told them to be quiet, but they kept it up until I was out of the place.”83 It had been nearly eighteen years since Juan Melendez had been able to look up at the night sky. “I wanted to see the moon and the stars, and I could not see them because it was a cloudy night. I wanted simple things. I wanted to walk on grass. I wanted to hold a little baby in my arms. I wanted to talk to some beautiful women. I owe the Honorable Barbara Fleischer my life. She looked at the whole pie, not just a piece of the pie. She read everything about the case from the beginning all the way to the end. Roger Alcott becoming a judge got my case out of Polk County, out of the good-old-boy network where they fabricated the case against me. It was a racist county. If I hadn’t gotten my case out of Polk County, I would probably be dead by now. . . . I forgive Prosecutor Hardy Pickard, but I do not respect him. For me to respect him, he would need to admit his mistake. The thing about forgiving is that, after forgiving, only then can you start to heal. If you don’t forgive, you are filled with hate and anger. The death penalty does nothing to provide that healing. It’s about vengeance.”84 In its o<cial statement to the press, the Polk County State Attorney’s O<ce said that they would not seek a new trial since of its two chief witnesses one, David Falcon, was dead and the other, John Berrien, had re-