In the Pitts-Lee case, Miller teamed with Miami polygraph criminologist Warren Holmes, as he had in earlier freeing two others wrongfully convicted on murder charges - Airman Joseph Shea and Mary Katherin Hampton.

Miller and Holmes worked night and day for two months gathering new evidence never heard at Shea's first trial. The Herald published Miller's long story on June 13, 1965.

The same day, State Attorney Richard Gerstein reopened the case. Shea was acquitted at a second trial.

Gerstein Monday said Miller's second Pulitzer "has to be one of the finest moments that any American journalist has ever experienced."

During the Shea investigation, Miller also became convinced that an 18-year-old Sandy Hook, Ky., farm girl of minimal intelligence, Miss Hampton, was innocent of two counts of murder to which she had pleaded guilty in Louisiana.

Miller did battle with the state of Louisiana to prove that Miss Hampton, whose confession was obtained under threat of the electric chair, was innocent.

She, too, was subsequently freed from prison.

It was the Pitts-Lee case that won national attention.

Miller had once worked in Richmond, Va., under editor James Kilpatrick, now a nationally syndicated columnist. Kilpatrick wrote about the case:

"The Pitts-Lee case has everything: everything bad ...

"For Gene Miller of The Miami Herald, it has been a tale of enormous injustice, and he will not let it go."

Pitts and Lee had been convicted of a predawn robbery-slaying on Aug. 1, 1963, of two Mo-Jo gas station attendants in Port St. Joe in Florida's Panhandle. They remained in prison despite the subsequent confession by a white convict to the murders. Miller wrote a book, "Invitation to a Lynching," based on the Pitts-Lee case.

One attorney who worked with Miller on the case, Dade County Public Defender Phillip Hubbart, called the award Monday "fantastic. He worked long and hard on that case. Without him, I wonder if they'd still be in prison today."

Holmes said: "That's great. Gene's major attribute is his tenacious honesty. I think it's most deserving for Gene Miller and The Miami Herald.

"I've always said the job couldn't be done without The Miami Herald. This exemplifies the best role of newspapers in our society as a check and balance."

The Pulitzer Prizes were endowed by the late Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the old New York World, and were first awarded in 1917.

They are awarded annually by the trustees of Columbia University on recommendation of an advisory board. Winners get $1,000 each.

Block said he knew of no one "more deserving of this award than Gene Miller. He's an outstanding credit to his profession. If not for Gene's ability and tenancity, two innocent men would probably now be dead and buried. I think we all owe him a debt of gratitude for the work he did on this case."

Miller has worked for The Herald since 1957. He and Electra Miller have four children, Janet, 21, a student at the University of South Florida in Tampa; Teri, 18, a high school senior; Tom, 15; and Robin, 14.