DNA Evidence Clears Inmate After His Death

T A L L A H A S S EE, Fla., Dec. 14 -- Nearly 11 months after death row inmateFrank Lee Smith died of cancer, DNA has cleared him in the 1985rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl.

The FBI has not written its final report, but Assistant StateAttorney Carolyn McCann said she called the bureau to ask about theresults earlier this week and “they told me, ‘He has beenexcluded, he didn’t do it.’”

McCann, who was not the prosecutor at the trial but representedthe state during the appeals, said she was “very upset.”

“Nobody wants to feel like the wrong person was in jail,” shesaid Thursday. “It’s a bad feeling.”

The family of Shandra Whitehead, who was raped, beaten andchoked in her bedroom in Fort Lauderdale in 1985, has been told,McCann said. And the investigation has been reopened.

“We have suspects that the defense has been presenting allalong,” she said.

14 Years on Death Row

Geoffrey Smith, a lawyer for Smith, did not immediately return acall for comment.

Smith died on death row at age 52. He had spent 14 years ondeath row.

At the trial, three witnesses testified against him, includingthe little girl’s mother, who said she saw Smith at the living roomwindow, and a woman who said she saw him in front of the victim’shouse just before the murder. But that woman later said the man shesaw was someone else.

Smith claimed insanity, but the defense failed and the juryrecommended the death penalty.

Before his death, lawyers on both sides of the case werefighting over DNA. McCann said Smith’s lawyers wanted to have hisDNA tested but wanted to keep the results to themselves. She saidshe refused to agree to that.

“My whole point of doing DNA testing was that I thought he wasguilty,” McCann said.

Months after Smith’s death, an agreement was worked out, and avial of Smith’s blood was compared with semen taken from the littlegirl.