Man Serving 400 Years In Jail Is Exonerated And Freed After 34 Years

A man has been exonerated after serving 34 years out of 400 years jail term for a crime he didn’t commit.

The Florida man before he regained his freedom was convicted for armed robbery. He walked out of jail Monday, March 13, after a judge vacated his sentence based on new findings that the case against him was deeply flawed.

Sidney Holmes, 57, spent more than 34 years behind bars for a 1988 carjacking near Fort Lauderdale. 

In 2020, Holmes contacted the Broward State Attorney’s Office Conviction Review Unit to say he was factually innocent. That got the ball rolling.

Prosecutors now firmly believe he didn’t do it, citing a flawed focus on his vehicle, a witness identification process rife with bias and a solid alibi.

“The State Attorney’s Office would not charge him today based on these facts,” the Broward County prosecutor’s office said in a statement Monday. 

After his release, Holmes hugged his mother outside the Broward County Main Jail.

“I never would give up hope,” Holmes told reporters. “I knew this day was going to come sooner or later, and today is the day.”

Broward County State Attorney Harold F. Pryor praised those who participated in reinvestigating the case and said in the statement, “We have one rule here at the Broward State Attorney’s Office — do the right thing, always.”

Holmes’ plight began in summer 1988 when a man spotted him behind the wheel of a brown 1970s-era Oldsmobile Cutlass in South Florida. Three weeks earlier, the man’s brother and a woman were robbed by people in a similar vehicle, according to the Conviction Review Unit’s final memo on the case, which was provided by county prosecutors.

The man told his brother, the victim, about the car, and the victim told police. Police quickly zeroed in on Holmes, who had been convicted for his role as the driver in two armed robberies in 1984, according to the memo.

In the June 19, 1988, robbery, the victim said an Oldsmobile stopped behind his car outside a convenience store and two people approached and took it at gunpoint, the review said. A driver stayed behind the wheel of the suspects’ car, he said.

The carjacking victims both described the person behind the wheel as relatively short and heavy. Prosecutors later said the person was Holmes. But Holmes was 6 feet, 183 pounds at the time.

The vehicle, believed to be a 1970s Oldsmobile Cutlass, was described as having a hole where its trunk lock would have been, according to the memo. Holmes’ car had a trunk lock, it said.