Judge vacates life sentence of wrongfully convicted Florida man

MIAMI – A choose in Miami on Wednesday vacated the life sentence of a 55-year-old Black man who prosecutors stated was wrongfully convicted due to mistaken id in 1991.

“I really feel good. Actual good,” Thomas “Jay” Raynard James stated Wednesday as he left a Miami courtroom together with his attorneys and members of the family.

James was convicted of the 1990 demise of Francis McKinnon, largely on the identification by an eyewitness who advised jurors she watched him gun down her stepfather throughout a theft in his Coconut Grove condominium.

Earlier Wednesday, James, sporting his pink jail uniform and shackles, stood behind his mom, Doris Sturdy, as Miami-Dade State Legal professional Katherine Fernandez Rundle detailed a 90-page movement her workplace filed asking for the conviction to be vacated.

“Mother, hopefully the courtroom will grant you the liberty you’ve been on the lookout for for therefore a few years,” Fernandez Rundle advised Sturdy, who sobbed quietly all through the information convention.

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James, who was 23 when he was convicted, was anticipated to be launched after paperwork was accomplished Wednesday.

Over the previous 12 months, Fernandez Rundle stated, members of her workplace’s Justice Mission poured over 20,000 pages of paperwork, reinterviewed witnesses, resubmitted fingerprints and retested DNA samples.

She stated the case has gone by means of quite a few appeals, post-conviction critiques, and critiques by a non-public investigator and the Innocence Mission of Florida Inc.

“None have been profitable find Mr. Thomas Raynard James harmless till we bought concerned,” Fernandez Rundle stated.

In a 90-page movement to vacate the conviction, prosecutors stated “what seems to be an opportunity coincidence that the defendant, Thomas Raynard James, had the identical identify as a suspect named by witnesses and nameless tipsters … led to the defendant’s {photograph} being included in a lineup, and set in movement a mistaken id.”

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Months later, James was arrested and charged with homicide.

On the trial, eyewitness Dorothy Walton advised jurors that she was positive that James, then 23, pulled the set off.

“I am optimistic of it. I’ll always remember his face,” she advised jurors in 1991.

One other eyewitness who had recognized James within the picture lineup testified that the particular person he noticed that night time was not within the courtroom.

However Walton’s testimony was key to the jury’s verdict, as a result of there was no bodily proof tying anybody to the killing, Fernandez Rundle stated. The truth is, fingerprints from the scene didn’t match James.

However starting final fall, Walton stated she had some considerations about her testimony, Fernandez Rundle stated. She initially refused to fulfill with prosecutors, however earlier this month made contact and stated she now believes she made a mistake in figuring out James because the gunman.

Fernandez Rundle stated that through the years there have been conflicting tales about detectives complicated James with one other man who shared his identify. However that man had been arrested and was in jail on the time of the taking pictures, she stated.

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The person suspected of killing McKinnon died in 2020 in Las Vegas, the movement stated.

Natlie Figgers, who represents James, urged folks to talk up after they see an injustice.

“It took a village to make this occur. It wasn’t a clean experience,” Figgers stated. “I need to lengthen my gratitude to everybody that performed a component in bringing this end result.”