Sidney Holmes, a 57-year-old American man who was serving a 400-year prison sentence for a crime he did not commit, has walked free after spending 34 years behind bars by mistake.
In accordance with The viewer, Holmes would have been sentenced in 1988 to spend his life in prison. This is because he was linked to an armed robbery, for allegedly driving the vehicle in which two unidentified people were moving, who assaulted a man and a woman north of Miami, United States.
Man sentenced to 400 years in prison walks free
The man was recently released thanks to the fact that the state of Florida, in a new investigation of his case, will determine that he really did not commit any armed robbery, according to ABC News.
Well, it was the victim’s brother who saw a similar car weeks after the robbery occurred and informed the authorities. The vehicle was in the name of Holmes.
“There was no physical or scientific evidence, or corroborating witnesses, linking Mr. Holmes to the crime,” authorities said in a statement from the Innocence Project.
After several years of pleas of innocence and after serving more than three decades behind bars, a judge finally approved the request and overturned the 400-year sentence in Sydney jail.
“I never lost hope and always knew this day would come,” said the man, “I can’t wait to hug my mother in the free world for the first time in over 34 years,” he added in the aforementioned statement.
Even though the man was mistreated by the authorities that arrested him, as well as sentenced by mistake, he mentioned in an interview with several American media outlets that he was released from prison without any resentment from jail, as he pointed out that “with the Christian faith that I have, I cannot have hate. I just have to keep moving.”
