USA: Thomas Raynard James, the man who spent 32 years in prison being innocent, is released

Thomas Raynard James, 55, was released Wednesday after a Miami-Dade judge overturned the life sentence imposed on him in 1991 following a request made in that regard by the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office. county.

Shortly before the judge’s decision, the state attorney for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida, Katherine Fernández Rundle, announced at a press conference that They would ask for the trial to be annulled because it was a case of “mistaken identity”.

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“We are going to undo what is the wrongful conviction of an innocent man. Today we are undoing an injustice, which was an unintentional mistake. We are going to ask the court, our court of law, to give Mr. James the freedom he deserves.” said the prosecutor, accompanied by James — at that time still in his prison uniform and handcuffed — and his relatives.

“The world,” James replied – no longer in the red uniform and dressed in civilian clothes – to reporters who asked him what was next now that he was a free man upon his departure from the prosecutor’s office, according to the Miami Herald newspaper. .

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For James, this was the end of a long road of rejected appeals and media interviews in which he defended that he was not the murderer of Francis McKinnon.

Fernández Rundle’s announcement comes after his office reopened this case last year and concluded that Jamesnow 55 years old, of which 32 were spent in prison, He was not the one who killed McKinnon during a South Miami home invasion in January 1990.

In the entire judicial process there was not a single piece of physical evidence that would incriminate James. and the guilty verdict that would lead to life in prison was based primarily on a key witness, Dorothy Walton, the victim’s stepdaughter, who was present during the event and who identified the man from a group of photos presented to her by agents.

The woman, however, corrected herself over the years and, as she declared to the local channel NBC 6, noted that the author of the fatal shot was not James.

The man, then 23, had been arrested shortly after the murder for another incident unrelated to the case and while in custody was charged with McKinnon’s murder.

On the day of the events, a couple of men entered the house in Coral Gables where Francis McKinnon and Ethra McKinnon lived and pointed guns at the occupants.

When McKinnona veteran of the Vietnam War who suffered from post-traumatic stress and was in a room at the time, heard noises, came out armed to confront the intruders, but one of the assailants fired first and ended his life, after which they fled of the scene

According to the police report, the officers received clues about a certain Thomas “Dog Williams” James, a resident of the Coconut Grove neighborhood, as a suspect in the crime.

The Police arrested Thomas Raynard James, although later during the investigation no correspondence was found between his fingerprints and those found in the house.

The detainee always defended his innocence and pointed out that it was a case of “mistaken identity”.

In court, McKinnon’s relatives today were not satisfied with the judge’s decision, as reported by local media.

Source: Elcomercio

Deshawn