Moment Mother Hugs Son Exonerated After Spending 34 Years Out Of 400 Years Sentence

Florida man, Sidney Holmes who was serving 400 years in prison for armed robbery has been freed after a judge vacated his sentence based on new findings that the case against him was deeply flawed.

Gatekeepers News reports that Holmes, 57, spent more than 34 years behind bars for a 1988 carjacking near Fort Lauderdale.

After his release, he hugged his mother outside the Broward County Main Jail.

“I never would give up hope,” Holmes told reporters. “I knew this day was going to come sooner or later, and today is the day.”

In 2020, Holmes contacted the Broward State Attorney’s Office Conviction Review Unit to say he was factually innocent. Prompting a fresh investigation.

Prosecutors now firmly believe he didn’t do it, citing a flawed focus on his vehicle, a witness identification process rife with bias and a solid alibi.

“The State Attorney’s Office would not charge him today based on these facts,” the Broward County prosecutor’s office said in a statement Monday.

Broward County State Attorney Harold F. Pryor praised those who participated in reinvestigating the case and said in the statement, “We have one rule here at the Broward State Attorney’s Office — do the right thing, always.”

Gatekeepers News reports that Holmes’ plight began in summer 1988 when a man spotted him behind the wheel of a brown 1970s-era Oldsmobile Cutlass in South Florida. Three weeks earlier, the man’s brother and a woman were robbed by people in a similar vehicle, according to the Conviction Review Unit’s final memo on the case, which was provided by county prosecutors.

The man told his brother, the victim, about the car, and the victim told police. Police quickly zeroed in on Holmes, who had been convicted for his role as the driver in two armed robberies in 1984, according to the memo.