Florida Governor Signs Bill Authorizing $2.15 Million Compensation for Death-Row Exoneree Imprisoned 43 Years

Florida death-row exoneree Clifford Williams, Jr. (pic­tured), who was freed in 2019 after spend­ing 43 years in prison, will receive $2.15 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion from the state of Florida under a bill signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis on June 9, 2020. The bill, specif­i­cal­ly tai­lored to com­pen­sate Williams, unan­i­mous­ly passed both cham­bers of the Florida leg­is­la­ture in March. 

Williams and his nephew, Nathan Myers, were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der in 1976. Both received jury rec­om­men­da­tions for life sen­tences, but the tri­al judge over­rode the jury’s ver­dict and sen­tenced Williams to death. Myers, who was 18 at the time of the mur­der and was sen­tenced to life, has already received $2 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion. However, Williams was inel­i­gi­ble for com­pen­sa­tion under Florida law because he had pre­vi­ous­ly been con­vict­ed of two unrelated crimes. 

The leg­is­la­ture took up the com­pen­sa­tion bill to redress that inequity. The pref­ace to the bill states, ​“the Legislature acknowl­edges that the state’s sys­tem of jus­tice yield­ed an imper­fect result that had trag­ic con­se­quences in this case.… [T]he Legislature is pro­vid­ing com­pen­sa­tion to Clifford Williams to acknowl­edge the fact that he suf­fered sig­nif­i­cant dam­ages that are unique to Clifford Williams for being wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed.” Senate Minority Leader Audrey Gibson (D – Jacksonville), who spon­sored the bill, said, ​“Mr. Williams has been stead­fast in his belief that jus­tice would pre­vail in the end. Today, the gov­er­nor hon­ored that long-held faith.” 

Williams and Myers were tried and con­vict­ed in 1976 for the mur­der of Jeanette Williams (no rela­tion to Clifford Williams) and the wound­ing of her girl­friend, Nina Marshall. Marshall told police that two men had entered their bed­room at night and fired shots from the foot of the bed. She iden­ti­fied Williams and Myers as the shoot­ers. However, the phys­i­cal evi­dence — nev­er pre­sent­ed by defense coun­sel — revealed that the bul­lets had been fired from out­side, shat­ter­ing the bed­room win­dow, and had come from a sin­gle gun. Defense coun­sel also ignored forty ali­bi wit­ness­es whom Williams and Myers had indi­cat­ed would be able to tes­ti­fy that they had been at a birth­day par­ty next door at the time of the shoot­ing. The defense pre­sent­ed no witnesses. 

The Florida Supreme Court over­turned Williams’ death sen­tence in 1980 and resen­tenced him to life with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after 25 years. Neither man was granted parole. 

Prosecutors began rein­ves­ti­gat­ing the case after new­ly elect­ed State Attorney Melissa Nelson cre­at­ed the first Conviction Integrity Unit in the state in 2018. The unit issued its report, authored by Conviction Integrity Review Director Shelley Thibodeau, in February 2019. The report not­ed that no phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Williams or Myers to the shoot­ing and that ​“the phys­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence actu­al­ly con­tra­dicts [Marshall’s] tes­ti­mo­ny about what hap­pened.” The report also found that anoth­er man, Nathaniel Lawson, had con­fessed to sev­er­al peo­ple that he had com­mit­ted the killings and that a 1976 police report not­ed his pres­ence near the crime scene around the time of the mur­der. Thibodeau con­clud­ed that “[t]he cul­mi­na­tion of all the evi­dence, most of which the jury nev­er heard or saw, leaves no abid­ing con­fi­dence in the con­vic­tions or the guilt of the defendants.” 

Williams’ exon­er­a­tion fol­lows a pat­tern famil­iar in Florida death-penal­ty exon­er­a­tions. In 21 of the 23 Florida exon­er­a­tions for which the jury’s sen­tenc­ing vote is known, judges imposed the death penal­ty by over­rid­ing a jury rec­om­men­da­tion for life or fol­low­ing a non-unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tion for death.