DNA may free longtime inmate

The Miami Herald
BY PAULA McMAHON, Sun Sentinel

Broward County, FL

Tests eliminated a man convicted of rape and murder of being the source of DNA found on the victim. Prosecutors want to release him, at least temporarily.

Broward prosecutors said Friday they want to release -- at least temporarily -- a Miramar man serving life in prison for a 1983 rape and murder, saying he should go free while they study a forensic test that has eliminated him as the source of DNA found on the victim.

Anthony Caravella, 41, has spent close to 26 years in prison for the rape and murder of Ada Cox Jankowski, 58. Tests conducted by a private lab in California and released Wednesday show Caravella was not the source of the DNA. The results instead turned up the genetic profile of a still-unidentified male.

Prosecutor Carolyn McCann told The Sun Sentinel that the Broward State Attorney's Office is not ready to vacate Caravella's conviction at this time.

But State Attorney Mike Satz and prosecutors feel that releasing Caravella is "the right thing to do'' while they investigate the new evidence, she said.

"This is unprecedented, and we are exploring what our options are,'' McCann said.

Prosecutors will file a formal request in the next few days asking a judge to approve Caravella's temporary release, most likely with some form of monitoring or supervision, she said. Details of the conditions governing his release are being worked out, she said.

Caravella's public defender, Diane Cuddihy, said she was 'very heartened'' by the prosecution's action. It means they're taking this DNA result very seriously.''

SHOULD BE CLEARED

The defense says the new DNA findings prove Caravella is innocent and he should be exonerated. They say his confessions, which became more incriminating over five interrogation sessions, were coerced and included contradictory and incorrect information about the crime.

Prosecutors want Caravella released even though he told his mother, as well as police, that he committed the attack and other aspects of the case, in the state's view, that support his conviction.

"We are not going to ignore science and we are always motivated to try to do what's right, no matter what anyone thinks about us,'' McCann said.

The findings by the private lab raise many questions, she said, including how the lab also found a DNA profile on the sample that belongs to a woman who is not the victim. Lab workers speculated the sample had been contaminated.

It will take time to analyze the results and have other experts review them, McCann said. Investigators also want to run the male DNA profile through state and national databases to see whether they find a match, she said.

Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University in Chicago, commended Broward prosecutors for seeking the release.

"It's very rare that prosecutors would do this,'' Warden said. "It would be an indication that they don't have any great confidence in a theory that would support someone else's DNA being in the victim.''

McCann and Cuddihy filed a joint request Friday to move Caravella to the Broward County Jail from a prison in West Miami-Dade so a judge can hear the release request as soon as possible. Broward Circuit Judge Kenneth Gillespie immediately signed the transfer order.

The prosecution will schedule a hearing, probably next week, to ask a different judge to order Caravella's temporary release while the post-conviction investigation goes on.

Caravella was 15 years old when he was arrested, and has an IQ of 67, which experts classify as mild mental retardation. Prosecutors sought the death penalty. A jury convicted him, but voted 11-1 to spare his life.

APPEAL REJECTED

His initial appeal was rejected and he lingered in prison with no legal representation. In 2001, his brother Larry Dunlap called The Sun Sentinel and asked whether DNA testing might clear him. A reporter who reviewed the case and found areas of concern asked the Broward Public Defender's Office to examine the matter and Cuddihy took it on.

Several people convicted in Broward County have been exonerated by DNA or had their convictions thrown out in the past decade. Two high-profile cases involved Frank Lee Smith, who died of cancer on Death Row before DNA exonerated him in 2000, and Jerry Frank Townsend, a mentally retarded man released in 2001 after 21 years in prison.

Townsend confessed to several murders in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. The Broward murders were later proved to have been committed by a serial rapist and killer.

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