The Florida Supreme Court has vacat­ed James Floyd’s 1985 con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, rul­ing that crit­i­cal evi­dence was with­held by the pros­e­cu­tion and that the evi­dence might have been enough to change the ver­dict at tri­al. In its 4 – 2 deci­sion, the Court ruled that the pros­e­cu­tor’s fail­ure to inform Floyd’s defense coun­sel that an eye­wit­ness had seen two white men enter­ing the vic­tim’s home on the day of the mur­der and saw them leave in a sus­pi­cious man­ner approx­i­mate­ly one hour lat­er ​“severe­ly com­pro­mised Floyds’ con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a fair tri­al.” The rul­ing not­ed that the state’s case against Floyd, who is black, was based main­ly on cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence, and includ­ed no eye­wit­ness, fin­ger­print or DNA evi­dence link­ing him to the mur­der. ​“We con­clude that our con­fi­dence in the defen­dan­t’s mur­der con­vic­tion has clear­ly been shak­en by the evi­dence that the State sup­pressed in this case. While there is not a ​‘smok­ing gun’ in the sup­pressed evi­dence that would com­plete­ly exon­er­ate the defen­dant, there was also not a ​‘smok­ing gun’ in the State’s case against him,” the court wrote. Bernie McCabe, the state attor­ney in Pinellas County, said he did­n’t know if the state would attempt to bring Floyd to trial again. 

(Associated Press, March 24, 2005). See Innocence.

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