Jesse Scheckner
A bill to pay $1.7 million to a Lauderhill man who spent 34 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit has Gov. Ron DeSantis as its only remaining obstacle.
House members voted 112-0 for SB 10, which clears compensation to Sidney Holmes, who was just 23 in April 1989 when a jury convicted him of armed robbery.
An investigation into the case by Broward County State Attorney Harold Pryor’s Conviction Review Unit decades later found Holmes was almost certainly not the culprit and triggered a process that led to his conviction of 400 years in prison being overturned.
He was set free in 2023, but Florida’s unique “clean hands” rule kept him from receiving the $50,000-per-year compensation for which exonerees are otherwise eligible without legislative action.
Davie Rep. Mike Gottlieb, who sponsored SB 10 in the House with Miami Rep. Ashley Gantt, a fellow lawyer and Democrat, paraphrased the centuries-old maxim that it is “better that 10 guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer” before Wednesday’s vote.
The vote took place one day after Senators voted 38-0 for the measure, which Hollywood independent Sen. Jason Pizzo carried in the upper chamber.
It also came after impassioned speeches by Miami Republican Rep. Vicki Lopez and Fort Lauderdale Democratic Rep. Daryl Campbell, who each shared poignant perspectives on the matter.
Lopez spoke to Holmes, who sat in the upper wing of the House chamber, as the only member of the House to have been imprisoned and later had her conviction vacated, an experience that inspired broad activism in criminal justice reform.
“I can’t imagine what you lived, but more importantly, I can’t imagine how you overcame the losses that someone faces over 30-something years,” she said. “I just want you to know that this House does understand what you’ve been through, and this House does understand that we owe you at least this.”
Campbell, a mental health therapist, spoke of the mental toll being wrongly imprisoned has on a person. He recited a lengthy list of psychological issues a person can suffer under such conditions.
“Yet despite all this, Mr. Holmes emerged without bitterness, and he maintained his innocence, he educated himself, he became a paralegal (and) believed he would one day be free,” he said. “But I am here to tell you that hope does not erase trauma. He now re-enters a world that barely resembles the one he left.”
SB 10 is a claims bill, a measure 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.
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.”
Florida’s 17th 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 91 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.
