Source: The Palm Beach Post, Fla.迷你倉出租Sept. 05--WEST PALM BEACH -- The breeze that Patrick "P.J." Melehan felt on his face outside the Palm Beach County courthouse Wednesday carried his first taste of freedom in six years.He'd spent those years behind bars in the death of an 18-year-old found impaled on a steel rod. Now he was free from what was once a pair of convictions and a 25-year prison sentence in a case his lawyers said highlighted the scary outcome of poor police work, lying witnesses and a blinded prosecution.It took a reversal of his convictions on appeal, two weeks of testimony in his new trial, and just two hours of deliberations Wednesday from a new jury in his case, but a pair of not guilty verdicts cleared Melehan in the 2007 death of Carlos Lopez of Jupiter.Circuit Judge Richard Oftedal ordered him released immediately, and in less than 10 minutes, the now 25-year-old went from having a 25-year prison sentence looming over his head to standing outside of the courthouse, taking in the first breaths of freedom he's had since he was 19.He had no plans, he said, standing near an outdoor rotunda next to his attorney Marc Shiner. There was nothing really in particular he'd thought of doing if he got out."I just thought about being outside like this, feeling the breeze," he said, adding that that moment was the first time he'd felt such a breeze in six years. "I can't explain how I'm feeling right now."Though Melehan's family had cried with joy in the courtroom at the verdicts, the pained expressions on the faces of Lopez's mother and his relatives showed exactly how they were feeling.They left the courthouse without comment, as did prosecutors Barbara Burns and Lindsay Warner.Burns had prosecuted Melehan the first time, when he was facing second-degree murder charges for what happened to Lopez after the teens fought outside Melehan's Jupiter home. Though investigators found Lopez in his pick-up with a steel rod run clear through his skull, no one ever saw Melehan with a rod and none of the witnesses could explain what happened.Still, a jury in 2009 convicted Melehan of manslaughter and burglary with battery, for punching Lopez inside his pickup. An appeals court threw out those convictions, along with Melehan's 25-year sentence, after they found that former presiding Judge Lucy Chernow Brown should have granted a mistrial in two instances during the first trial.Had Melehan been convicted this time, the case could have been reversed on appeal again, as Shiner and fellow defense attorney Heidi Perlet asked Oftedal to declare a mistrial after Burns brought up to jurors during Melehan's testimony that he declined to talk to investigators after he was arrested.Criminal defendants have a right to remain silent when they're arrested, and references like the one Burns made have previously led judges to declare m迷你倉strials and appeals courts to throw out other convictions. In this case, Melehan's acquittal rendered the issue moot.Shiner and Perlet spent two weeks convincing the jury that Melehan was wrongfully accused. It was Lopez, they said, who had a history of violence and came to the Jupiter home Melehan shared with friends looking for a fight.Melehan said Lopez had pulled a knife on one of his friends weeks earlier, and he had been riding through the neighborhood ever since spewing threats.On t he night of the incident, other teens at Melehan's house said Lopez had a gun. And Melehan said Lopez pulled a gun on him when he approached Lopez's pickup to get him to leave.Melehan, who testified in his defense, said he reached into the truck and punched Lopez in self-defense to keep him from shooting him.Lopez's car eventually spun out of control and he was found impaled on the rod immediately afterwards.Two jurors in Melehan's case reached by phone Wednesday expressed sorrow for Lopez's family, but said there simply wasn't sufficient evidence to prove that Melehan had committed either of the crimes with which he was charged.Juror George Grabowski said the group all agreed that Melehan acted in self defense when he punched Lopez inside his pick-up truck, so the burglary with battery charge was out. And there was no evidence connecting Melehan to the rod, Grabowski said. No witnesses. No fingerprints. No DNA. Nothing."What it gets down to is that this was a couple of 18, 19 year old kids who got in a fight six years ago," Grabowski said, saying there was never a split among jurors on whether or not Melehan was guilty. "We looked at all the evidence closely, and in the end I think what we all should take away from this is a reminder to be more kind to our neighbors, and to our fellow man."Shiner, who in his closing arguments to jurors expressed outrage that Melehan had been incarcerated for so long on such little evidence, had a hard time containing his joy as he walked out with his client.As reporters peppered the newly freed man with questions, Shiner patted Melehan on the back and asked a question of his own."Do you believe in the system now?" Shiner asked him.Melehan was slow to answer, but spoke up as a smile started to cross his face."Somewhat," he said with a shrug and a nod. "Somewhat."Staff researcher Niels Heimeriks contributed to this story.THE VERDICTA jury acquitted Patrick "P.J." Melehan of manslaughter and burglary with battery charges in the 2007 death of Carlos Lopez, 18, who was mysteriously impaled by a steel rod.Melehan, now 25, had served 6 years of a 25-year sentence for his 2009 jury conviction on the same charges.Copyright: ___ (c)2013 The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.) Visit The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.) at .palmbeachpost.com Distributed by MCT Information Services儲存倉
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