The 55-year-old man was released on Wednesday after a Miami-Date judge in 1991 overturned his life sentence for misrepresentation in a criminal murder.
Shortly before the judge’s decision was announced, Florida’s 11th Judicial District Attorney, Catherine Fernandez Randall, announced that she was seeking to cancel the trial of Thomas Raynard James because it was a “false identification.”
“Today we will drop the unjust accusation of an innocent [quarta-feira] We are committing an injustice, which is a mistake made unknowingly. We will ask the court what qualifications this person should be given, ”said the public prosecutor, who was accompanied by Thomas Renard James, who was in prison at the time.
According to the Miami Herald, when he was released without his red prison uniform, when James was now a free man, when asked by reporters what the next stage of his life would be, he replied, “The world.”
According to James, this was the end of a long process of rejected appeals and media interviews in which he argued that he was not responsible for the assassination of Francis McKinnon.
The Miami-Dale Attorney’s Office reopened the case last year, concluding that James, who spent 32 years in prison, did not kill McKinnon during the January 1990 home invasion of southern Miami.
Throughout the court case, there was no physical evidence to charge James, and the sentence leading to imprisonment was based primarily on a key witness, Dorothy Walton, the victim’s adopted daughter, who was present at the event and identified the person. From the group of pictures submitted by the agents.
The woman, however, adjusted her version over the years and assumed that James was not the author of the dangerous shot, as noted by local TV channel NBC6.
Thomas Raynard James, then 23, was arrested shortly after the crime for another incident unrelated to the case, and while in prison, McKinnon was charged with murder.
On the day of the crime, some people entered the house where Francis McKinnon and Ethra McKinnon lived and opened fire on the occupants.
McKinnon, a veteran of the Vietnam War who suffered from PTSD, was shot first by one of the robbers when he heard gunfire in his home and confronted armed invaders.
Thomas Renard James was later arrested by police, although there was no match between his fingerprints and those found at the home during the investigation.
James always defended his innocence, insisting that it was a “false sign.”
According to local media, McKinnon’s family members were not satisfied with the judge’s decision.
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