A Florida man serving a 400-year sentence for armed robbery in 1988 was released Monday. That came after a judge acquitted 57-year-old Sidney Holmes on new findings that the case against him was “deeply flawed.”
Holmes, who had always maintained his innocence, couldn’t hold back his tears after the review. “I would never give up hope,” he told reporters after his release from Broward County Main Jail in Fort Lauderdale. “I knew this day would come sooner or later, and today is the day.”
The 50-year-old was convicted in 1988 because he was seen driving a brown 1970s Oldsmobile Cutlass, which, according to one of the victims, closely resembled the vehicle that had parked behind his brother’s car at a convenience store. That brother had to give up his car a little later under threat of firearms. The thieves had just gotten out of the Oldsmobile while the driver of the later getaway vehicle remained seated.
The carjacking victims had described the driver of the getaway car – who prosecutors later said was Holmes – as “relatively small and heavy.”
Previous conviction
Police soon turned to Holmes, who had been convicted of his role as a driver in two armed robberies in 1984.
According to the victims, the getaway vehicle, believed to be an Oldsmobile Cutlass, had a hole in the trunk where the lock had been, according to them. However, Holmes’ car did have a trunk lock.
Review process
Holmes, who at the time had six people willing to testify that he was at his family home in South Florida at the time of the car theft to celebrate Father’s Day, contacted the district attorney’s review unit in 2020 to re-examine the case. to watch. During the review process, it turned out that Holmes’s car did have a trunk lock and that the man in his fifties is 6 feet 8 inches tall and did not fit the description given of him by the car theft victims.
The assessors of the case, in addition to the review unit, also the NGO Innocence Project of Florida and an independent review panel also found flaws in the witness identification process. The car theft victim, after reviewing a book of 250 possible suspects, did not identify any of them, nor single out Holmes during a six-picture lineup.
Holmes wants to put this case behind him as soon as possible. “I can’t have hate,” he said outside the courtroom. “I just have to keep going.”
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