Claims bill clearing $1.7M to Broward man wrongly imprisoned for 34 years advances

Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor embraces an emotional Sidney Holmes after his 400-year prison sentence was vacated in March 2023. Image via Harold Pryor/Instagram.

One year after similar legislation died without a hearing, a measure to pay $1.7 million to a Lauderhill man who spent 34 years wrongly imprisoned is advancing in the Legislature’s upper chamber.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-0 for SB 6, which would clear compensation to Sidney Holmes, who was just 23 in April 1989 when a jury convicted him of armed robbery.

The judge sentenced him to 400 years in prison, less than half the time prosecutors sought. In 2023, Broward County State Attorney Harold Pryor’s Conviction Review Unit determined it was “highly likely” Holmes was innocent and if the case were tried today, he wouldn’t be charged.

Holmes was freed in early 2023, and 11th Judicial Circuit Court (CRU) issued an agreed order to vacate judgment and sentence against him. That made him eligible to receive $50,000 for each year he was incarcerated.

But there was one snag. Florida has a unique provision known as the “clean hands rule,” which denies payment to exonerees with more than one nonviolent felony. It has kept Holmes, who had two prior armed robbery convictions, from being made whole and necessitated the passage of a claims bill.

Claims bills are measures intended to compensate a person for injuries or losses caused by the negligence or error of a public officer or agency. They arise when appropriate damages exceed what is allowable under Florida’s sovereign immunity statute, which shields government entities from costly lawsuits, or are blocked under the clean hands rule.

In Holmes’ case, it’s clear an injustice was done and things must be put right, the bill’s sponsor, Senate Democratic Leader Jason Pizzo of Hollywood, told the committee Wednesday. All its members agreed.

“I know a lot of Senators and Representatives either have some heartburn about claims bills, and others have empathy,” Palm Harbor Republican Sen. Ed Hooper said. “(If) 34 years of my life was stolen, that’s not a big number. There is no number. So, I’m glad we’re offering … some compensation, relief to Mr. Holmes. But that’s a small price to pay for 34 years of freedom.”

Holmes was arrested Oct. 6, 1989, on suspicion of being one of three men who robbed a man and woman at gunpoint outside a Fort Lauderdale convenience store. No evidence tied him to the crime aside from the eyewitness accounts of the victims, Anissa Johnson and Vincent Wright, whose recollection of the incident the CRU deemed unreliable due to photo and live-lineup practices used then that today are not considered best practices.

Holmes was accused of being the driver in the robbery. A memo the CRU released recommending his release noted the driver in question never got out of the car and pulled up behind the vehicle Johnson and Wright were in.

Further muddying matters was a civilian investigation conducted shortly after the robbery by Wright’s brother, Milton, that resulted in Holmes being the only suspect in the case. It is now believed Holmes and his Oldsmobile, a common vehicle at the time, were both misidentified.

On April 26, 1989, Holmes was convicted of armed robbery. Because of his previous felony convictions, prosecutor Peter Magrino requested that Holmes be sentenced to 825 years in prison. Holmes received an even 400.

In the three and a half decades that followed, Holmes maintained he was innocent. In November 2020, shortly after Pryor launched the CRU, Holmes contacted the unit to plead his case. CRU investigators got to work alongside the Innocence Project of Florida and ultimately concluded Holmes should be released.

Johnson and Vincent agreed, telling CRU investigators that even if he was guilty, he had more than paid his due. They and the original detectives on the case expressed shock at the sentence he received.

On Feb. 23, 2023, the CRU issued a 25-page memo recommending Holmes’ judgment and sentence be vacated and that the State Attorney’s Office should dismiss the charges against him.

“We have one rule here at the Broward State Attorney’s Office: Do the right thing, always,” Pryor said about a month later. “As prosecutors, our agenda is to promote public safety in our community and to ensure justice is served.”

The 11th Judicial Circuit Court issued an agreed order to vacate judgment and sentence of Holmes March 13, 2023, with concurrence from the state, on the basis of reasonable doubt. The order stated “it is highly likely that (Holmes) was misidentified and is factually innocent of the armed robbery.”

That same day, the state filed a notice of nolle prosequi, a formal dismissal of charges by the prosecution, and Holmes was freed on Broward Circuit Judge Edward Merrigan’s order.

“I never lost hope and always knew this day would come” Holmes said that day. “I cannot wait to hug my mother in the free world for the first time in 34 years.”

Since 1989, there have been 101 people in Florida whose convictions were later deemed wrongful, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.

Miami Gardens Democratic Sen. Shevrin Jones carried last year’s version of Holmes’ claims bill. Pizzo co-sponsored the measure.

SB 10 will next go to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Criminal and Civil Justice, after which it has one more committee stop before reaching a floor vote. Its House companion (HB 6501) by Davie Democratic Rep. Mike Gottlieb, who sponsored the proposal last year in the Legislature’s lower chamber, cleared its first of three committee stops with unanimous support March 5.