A US court this week acquitted a Florida man who was serving 400 years in prison for armed robbery, after the judiciary reached new information that changed the course of the case.
Sydney Holmes, 57, spent more than 34 years behind bars for stealing cars in 1988 near Fort Lauderdale and causing the death of people reports Al-Rai daily.
In 2020, Holmes submitted a request to a specialized unit to review cases in which the defendants insist that they are innocent.
Since that date, lawyers have scrutinized the information gathered in the Holmes case, and concluded that the testimonies recorded were biased and inaccurate.
Holmes’ defenders also discovered that the car he was driving, which was considered evidence in the case, as witnesses spotted it at the time of the armed robbery, was not the same vehicle used in the operation, but rather a similar one in terms of model.
Although Holmes insisted that there were six people who saw him at his parents’ house at the time of the accident, the police at the time did not listen to his claim.
One of the weaknesses in the evidence of the case was showing a group of pictures to a witness who was present at the time of the armed robbery, and the investigators focusing on Holmes, and re-displaying his pictures many times to suggest that he had been selected.
“I never lost hope,” Holmes told reporters after his release. I knew that this day would come sooner or later.
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