Essay-writing lawyer rejoins killer's case
Dublin Core
Title
Essay-writing lawyer rejoins killer's case
Subject
Lie-dector test
Criminal Defense Lawyer
Description
Two newspaper articles from the Orlando Sentinel published on Sunday June 18th, 1995. The articles focused on how Michael Mello re-entered the case of Joseph Spaziano. Mello also opposed giving Anthony Dilisio, a witness in the Joseph Spaziano case a lie-dector polygraph test. This was because the events of the case would have happen twenty plus years in the past and the witness (Dilisio) could have trouble recalling the correct events without any outside influence.
Creator
Taylor, Beth
Quinn, Christopher
Source
Taylor, Beth and Christopher Quinn. "Essay-writing lawyer rejoins killer's case." Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, FL), Jun. 18, 1995.
Taylor Beth and Christopher Quinn. "Main witness wavering about his trial testimony." Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, FL), Jun. 18, 1995.
Publisher
HIST 298, University of Mary Washington
Date
1995-18-06
Rights
The materials in this online collection are held by Special Collections, Simpson Library, University of Mary Washington and are available for educational use. For this purpose only, you may reproduce materials without prior permission on the condition that you provide attribution of the source.
Format
2 JPGs
300 DPI
Language
English
Coverage
Orlando, FL
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
A Vermont lawyer whose newspaper essay helped win a stay of execution for convicted killer Joseph Spaziano is back on the case, objecting to plans to give the key witness a lie-detector test.
Michael Mello, who represented Spaziano for a decade during appeals after his 1976 conviction, said he dropped the case in January because of illness but has recovered sooner than he expected. He rejoined the case Friday.
Mello’s impassioned essay, which ran earlier this month in The Orlando Sentinel and several other newspapers insisted that Spaziano did not torture and kill 18-year-old Orlando hospital clerk Laura Lynn Harberts in August 1973 and dump her body near Altamonte Springs beside another body that was never identified.
The essay questioned the credibility of Anthony Dilisio, who testified during the 1976 trial in Sanford that Spaziano took him to see the bodies. The boy hung out and used drugs with Spaziano and other members of the Outlaws motorcycle gang.
Last week, Dilisio, who lives in the Florida Panhandle, began wavering about his hypnosis-enhanced testimony in interviews with reporters. His lawyer says police manipulated the young Dilisio, and that he is now sure Spaziano never took him to the dump to see any bodies.
The uproar prompted Gov. Lawton Chiles to stay Spaziano’s June 27 execution pending a review by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. However, Chiles’ chief legal adviser, Dexter Douglass, said Friday that Dilisio did not recant last week when questioned about his testimony by FDLE agents.
Investigators are considering giving Dilisio a lie-detector test. Mello faxed a letter to the governor Friday, saying Dilisio is not “an appropriate subject for a reliable polygraph examination.”
Mello said Saturday that he fears such a test would be invalid because Dilisio’s story has changed and because of possible lingering effects of the witness’s drug use as a youth.
Dilisio’s decision to talk publicly about the case after 20 years took Mello by surprise. The attorney said he and other advocates for Spaziano have tried unsuccessfully to talk to the witness.
“I’d given up on Dilisio. I really had,” Mello said. “I didn’t think anyone would get any further with Dilisio than I had.”
In his published essay June 4, Mello complained that Dilisio’s story was tainted by hypnosis. Years after the 1976 trial, hypnosis-induced testimony was ruled inadmissible in court, although that ruling is not retroactive to Spaziano’s case.
But not all of Dilisio’s information was given under hypnosis. In a 1975 police interview two days before he was hypnotized, Dilisio said Spaziano had told him about mutilating and dumping “two girls” in an orange grove.
In the interview, Dilisio said: “… he’s killed a lot of girls … Just to do it. Go out and do it.”
The 16-year-old boy agreed during the interview to be hypnotized and subsequently provided prosecutors with more details.
In addition to his murder conviction, Spaziano is serving a life sentence for raping a 16-year-old Orange County girl, slashing her eyes and leaving her in the woods. She survived but lost most of the sight in one eye. Mello also calls that conviction questionable.
The girl, now an adult with children, is disappointed that Spaziano’s execution was stayed, her mother said.
“She thinks he should go,” the woman said. “She always said she wanted to be the one to throw the switch … He left her for dead.”
Douglass said Friday he has seen no evidence that Spaziano was wrongly convicted of murder. But Mello is delighted that the case is being reviewed and remains optimistic.
After six unsuccessful appeals, “I thought Joe was a goner this time,” he said.
Michael Mello, who represented Spaziano for a decade during appeals after his 1976 conviction, said he dropped the case in January because of illness but has recovered sooner than he expected. He rejoined the case Friday.
Mello’s impassioned essay, which ran earlier this month in The Orlando Sentinel and several other newspapers insisted that Spaziano did not torture and kill 18-year-old Orlando hospital clerk Laura Lynn Harberts in August 1973 and dump her body near Altamonte Springs beside another body that was never identified.
The essay questioned the credibility of Anthony Dilisio, who testified during the 1976 trial in Sanford that Spaziano took him to see the bodies. The boy hung out and used drugs with Spaziano and other members of the Outlaws motorcycle gang.
Last week, Dilisio, who lives in the Florida Panhandle, began wavering about his hypnosis-enhanced testimony in interviews with reporters. His lawyer says police manipulated the young Dilisio, and that he is now sure Spaziano never took him to the dump to see any bodies.
The uproar prompted Gov. Lawton Chiles to stay Spaziano’s June 27 execution pending a review by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. However, Chiles’ chief legal adviser, Dexter Douglass, said Friday that Dilisio did not recant last week when questioned about his testimony by FDLE agents.
Investigators are considering giving Dilisio a lie-detector test. Mello faxed a letter to the governor Friday, saying Dilisio is not “an appropriate subject for a reliable polygraph examination.”
Mello said Saturday that he fears such a test would be invalid because Dilisio’s story has changed and because of possible lingering effects of the witness’s drug use as a youth.
Dilisio’s decision to talk publicly about the case after 20 years took Mello by surprise. The attorney said he and other advocates for Spaziano have tried unsuccessfully to talk to the witness.
“I’d given up on Dilisio. I really had,” Mello said. “I didn’t think anyone would get any further with Dilisio than I had.”
In his published essay June 4, Mello complained that Dilisio’s story was tainted by hypnosis. Years after the 1976 trial, hypnosis-induced testimony was ruled inadmissible in court, although that ruling is not retroactive to Spaziano’s case.
But not all of Dilisio’s information was given under hypnosis. In a 1975 police interview two days before he was hypnotized, Dilisio said Spaziano had told him about mutilating and dumping “two girls” in an orange grove.
In the interview, Dilisio said: “… he’s killed a lot of girls … Just to do it. Go out and do it.”
The 16-year-old boy agreed during the interview to be hypnotized and subsequently provided prosecutors with more details.
In addition to his murder conviction, Spaziano is serving a life sentence for raping a 16-year-old Orange County girl, slashing her eyes and leaving her in the woods. She survived but lost most of the sight in one eye. Mello also calls that conviction questionable.
The girl, now an adult with children, is disappointed that Spaziano’s execution was stayed, her mother said.
“She thinks he should go,” the woman said. “She always said she wanted to be the one to throw the switch … He left her for dead.”
Douglass said Friday he has seen no evidence that Spaziano was wrongly convicted of murder. But Mello is delighted that the case is being reviewed and remains optimistic.
After six unsuccessful appeals, “I thought Joe was a goner this time,” he said.
Original Format
Newspaper
Contributor of the Digital Item
Miller, Gillian
Student Editor of the Digital Item
Williams, Megan
Files
Citation
Taylor, Beth and Quinn, Christopher, “Essay-writing lawyer rejoins killer's case,” HIST299, accessed March 12, 2026, https://hist299.umwhistory.org/items/show/174.