WEBVTT - #367 Guest Host Lauren Bright Pacheco with Sidney Holmes 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:06.240 On June nineteenth, nineteen eighty eight, Vincent Wright and his 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:10.000 girlfriend Anssia Johnson were parked outside a one stop convenience 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.320 store in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. While an Assia waited in 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.880 the car, Vincent went behind it to fill the rear 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:20.240 tire with air. Suddenly, two armed gunmen approached, demanding money. 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.960 Vincent said he didn't have any. Just then another man 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:26.800 pulled up in a brown Oldsmobile and told the two 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.920 gunmen to take Vincent's car and Thisssy had jumped out 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.240 of the car and the two men sped off, followed 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.960 by the Oldsmobile. Police had no leads and did little 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.920 to investigate until Vincent's brother gave them the license number 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:43.640 of a brown Oldsmobile he had seen driving around. The 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.840 car belonged to twenty two year old Sidney Holmes, who 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:50.879 soon became the focus of the investigation, but Sydney denied 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.280 any involvement, claiming to have been over a mile away 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:58.120 at the time. After viewing two photo arrays, both of 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.520 which contained Sydney's picture, as well as a live lineup 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.720 in which Sydney participated, Vincent identified him as the man 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:09.280 in the brown car. It seemed to make sense. Why 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:12.880 would one person be shown in repeated lineups if the 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:18.240 police didn't think he was guilty? But this is wrongful conviction. 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:39.640 Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction. Before we even get into 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.959 introductions with YouTube, gentlemen, I just want to give the 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.000 listener a little heads up about the insanity that is 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:52.520 about to unfold in their headphones. The thing that really 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.280 gets me most about this case is that the prosecution 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:01.600 initially recommended an eight hundred and twenty five year sentence, 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:07.200 and even without knowing what you were accused of. I 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.480 just want that to resonate because I can't wrap my 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.400 head around of what kind of a heinous crime would 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:19.440 warrant such a long sentence. My name is Lauren brad Pacheco, 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:22.600 and I'm a broadcast journalist and a podcaster of such 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.240 series as Murder in Oregon, Murder in Illinois, and Murder 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.240 in Miami. And I am very honored to be sitting 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.359 in this seat filling in for Jason Flohm. But I'm 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.400 also very honored to be speaking to you too, Sydney Holmes. 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.480 Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, thanks for having us, and also 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.880 joining us today is Brandon sheck Staff, attorney with the 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:45.639 Innocence Project of Florida. 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.040 Welcome Brandon, Thanks Lauren, it's great to be here. 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.280 Sidney. Can you just tell me a little bit about 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.600 your upbringing and your family. 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.280 Well, I grew it up in a household with two parents. 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.600 I have two sisters. We grew up in a Christian household. 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.400 We know, very loving, family, were very close, all kind 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:10.200 of functions. Family functions were always coming together Thanksgiving, you know, 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.040 Christmas and all of the other days. The thing with me, 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:15.440 I was always a book run I'm always, you know, 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.640 a gadget type of guy. You know, I always the intelligent. 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.000 I always want to be the smartest guy in the 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:23.919 in the room. I was always that kind of guy. 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.360 And Sydney, just take me to who you were at 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.520 the age of twenty two, the year that this happened 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.920 in your life. What were your interests, you know, what 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.040 were your hopes and plans for the future at that age. 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.040 Well, age twenty two, I was working at a hospital 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.280 in which they was going to send me to school 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.640 for a surgic technician. So, you know, I feel like 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.560 my future was bright at that time. I was highly 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.960 into the medical field. I was highly ambitionous, but it 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:53.640 didn't happen. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:59.120 And the irony is you had had two prior incidences 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.640 run ins with the but you had turned your life 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:03.920 around at that point, correct, Yes, ma'am. 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.320 It was a robbery case that at the same instinct, 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.680 I was taking a coworker home and he went inside 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.120 and committed to crimes without my knowledge, and I was 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:15.680 charged with the crime as well. 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.760 But as I understand it, you did plead guilty in 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.560 that case, even though you say you had no idea 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.040 the robbery was going on. Were you offered some kind 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.039 of plea deal or were you told that if you 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:30.080 pled guilty it would make things easier. 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:31.640 Yes, that was the case. 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.880 So when all of this went down, you were seen 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:40.240 as a previous prior offender, yes, ma'am. All right, And 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:43.599 so Brandon, can you just take me to the time 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.240 and the place that we're talking about. This happened in 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.960 Fort Lauderdale, But give me an idea of what the 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.680 scene was in nineteen eighty eight when the crime occurred. 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.960 Just in terms of the relationship between the police and 0:04:59.120 --> 0:04:59.640 the public. 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:04.240 Well, you know, Broward County, Florida, has a history, and 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:05.960 it's a well documented history. 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:09.880 At that time in Fort Lauderdale. 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.320 There were a lot of these types of armed robberies, 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:17.800 and actually the arrest rate where police made arrests in 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:19.560 those cases was quite low. 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:21.880 It was twenty to twenty five percent. 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:24.479 So there are a large number of these types of 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.680 crimes happening, and you know, not enough police a lot 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.040 of cases, had not a lot to go on, and 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.520 so there are a lot of these unsolved cases. And 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.000 so in those cases, you know, we see shortcuts being taken, 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.799 and definitely we see shortcuts being taken here in Sydney's case, 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:46.800 and those shortcuts definitely directly led to his wrongful conviction. 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:51.880 And probably contributed significantly to the fact that Broward County 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:53.960 doesn't have a great track record when it comes to 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:59.039 wrongful convictions. In fact, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.240 he leads the way in Florida with thirteen out of 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:04.839 ninety one wrongful convictions. 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:05.680 That's correct. 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:09.520 There's definitely a long history, and of course that history 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:14.599 affected a lot of folks, and you know, there's ongoing work, 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.400 you know, still with our organization with the State Attorney's 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:23.240 Office to try to assist individuals that we can identify 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:28.000 that were affected by that history, and Sydney here in 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.400 this case was definitely one of those folks. 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.560 I think it's also important to note that a lot 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:37.400 of those wrongful convictions occurred under the watch of Florida's 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:42.159 longest serving State Attorney, Mike Satz. I believe Satz was 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:44.600 in office for almost fifty years. 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.200 Yeah, that's correct. And you know, to mister Satz's credit, 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:49.800 you know, one of the things that he did on 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:54.960 the way out was established this Conviction Review Unit, and 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:59.200 that has continued, the review unit with great support by 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.920 the current State Attorney, mister Harrold Pryor. But yes, it's 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:07.440 quite unusual, especially in such a large jurisdiction as the 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:11.880 seventeenth Circuit Broward County, to have someone with that amount 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:13.760 of power for that long. 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.880 Okay, so now let's talk about the crime. This occurred 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:22.040 on June nineteenth, nineteen eighty eight, Father's Day. The two victims, 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:26.280 Vincent Wright and his girlfriend, Anessia Johnson, were outside of 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.520 a convenience store gas station. Anicia was sitting in the 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.440 car and Vincent was putting air in the tires. 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.400 Yeah, so there were there were two perpetrators that were 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.360 armed that came up to them and demanded money, demanded possessions. 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.280 The victims didn't have anything to give them. I think 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.880 the perpetrators were kind of frustrated by that. And you know, 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:51.960 simultaneous to that, a third person driving a brown Oldsmobile 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.840 kind of came up onto the scene as it's unfolding 0:07:55.320 --> 0:08:00.200 and told the two armed perpetrators, Hey, you just take 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:03.960 their car. And so the two armed perpetrators stole the 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:06.720 victim's car and drove off on the scene. And that 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:11.559 third individual got back into the brown Oldsmobile and also 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:13.240 drove off from the scene. 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:17.480 And where were you, Sydney At six thirty pm that 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:18.520 night when the crime. 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:23.520 Occurred, I was celebrating Father's Day with my father, friends, neighbors. 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:25.320 We were riding up and down the street on a 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:27.960 cold car. So for the whole day I was at 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.040 my parents' house celebrating Father's Day. 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.720 And multiple people were able to confirm that. 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.760 Yes, multiple pier cond term out way of Boss the 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:37.240 whole day. 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:42.160 So after the three perpetrators sped off, an Asia called 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.440 the police and when the detective showed up, she told 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.640 him what had happened and described the first two men. 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.800 She wasn't able to describe the man in the brown car. 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.960 At this point, Vincent had already set out with a 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:58.120 friend to try to chase the stolen car down themselves, 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.520 but Brandon, they didn't have any success, did they. 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.760 Know, so the perpetrators with the stolen car had about 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.920 a five minute head start. Police actually found the stolen 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:13.320 vehicle the next morning and returned it back to Vincent, 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:17.360 but essentially police didn't have any leads. They didn't do 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.120 much of any of their own investigation over the next 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.439 few days. But meanwhile, Vincent had gone home that night 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.200 of the crime and had told his brother Milton what 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:32.679 had happened. Interestingly enough, Milton told Vincent that earlier that 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.160 same day, a group of four people who were also 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.800 in a brown Olsmobile stopped his car in a street 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:44.680 attempting to carjack him and were actually shooting at him. 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.480 And Milton believed that that same group of folks that 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:54.600 tried to carjack him were the same people that tried 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.560 to or that did rob Vincent and Anicia earlier that 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:03.120 same day, and so so Milton decided to take the 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.520 investigation into his own hands. Over the next few days, 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.000 he kind of kept an eye out while he was driving, 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.120 you know, the streets of Fort Lauderdale to see if 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.520 he spotted any brown oldsmobiles. 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:19.720 He's basically playing citizen detective. 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:19.800 That's right. 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:23.800 And so he saw one brown oldsmobile, wrote down that 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.960 license plate, sent it to the police. Police ran it 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:31.480 through their system, and came back and told the right brothers, No, 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.040 actually that's the wrong car. Of course, they're looking for 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:40.280 three young black male perpetrators. And I can only imagine 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:44.480 that whatever car that brown Oldsmobile that Milton saw was 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.560 registered to was probably not a young black man. 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:49.960 And so police said, no, that's not a match. 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.880 But Milton continued to drive around over the next few 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:58.120 days and at one point was driving behind Sydney's car, 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.480 which was a brown Oldsmobile. So he gave that license 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.720 number to the police. Police saw that it was registered 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:07.280 to Sydney, who, of course is a young black man. 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:12.040 And Sydney also had these prior convictions for armed robbery, 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.280 and at that point it's kind of like bingo, here's 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.800 the guy that we're looking for. And from that point forward, 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:23.319 I would describe police as investigation as tunnel vision. 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:23.920 Essentially. 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.120 That's pretty incredible when you think of it. I mean, 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.080 what are the chances of Sydney having the same car 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:31.600 as the perpetrators. 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.920 So that's interesting that you mentioned that, because in our 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:39.840 post conviction investigation, we consulted with a historian at an 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:44.000 Oldsmobile museum in Michigan who told us, you know, you're 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.640 not going to believe this, but that car and that 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:52.199 precise color were the most common car and the most 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.760 common color of the most common car out on the 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.600 streets in the United States at that period of time, 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:03.720 and so I can only presume that there were hundreds, 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.040 if not thousands, of these, you know, very type of 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:11.720 brown Oldsmobile driving around the very busy streets of Fort Lauderdale, 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.400 Florida at that time. The reality is is that if 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:19.320 Milton had been driving behind another brown Oldsmobile register to 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.000 a young black man, then that person might have been 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:23.680 wrongfully convicted in this case. 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:29.160 But even by his own description, you know, Sydney's car 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.199 didn't match because what he described was a similar looking 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.640 car but had a blown out circle where the lock 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:38.560 would have been. 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.559 That's right, Milton is definitely the driving force of this investigation, 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:48.720 but you know, there were many inconsistencies between the car 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:54.960 involved in the one stop robbery, the car involved in 0:12:55.120 --> 0:13:00.320 the attempted carjacking of Milton and Sydney's car, and so 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.840 one of the most significant inconsistencies is that the car 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.520 involved in the one stop crime, in the arm robbery 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.920 of Milton was described as having a hole in the 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.720 trunk kind of where the lock would be. It's possible 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:16.760 that that was a stolen car and so the lock 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:21.200 was popped out, but Sydney's car didn't have that. Sydney's car, 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.560 the lock in the back was completely intact. There was 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:28.120 otherwise no hole in the trunk, and the state never 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:32.960 provided any evidence to suggest that that was ever the 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.160 case with Sydney's car. And so obviously that's a very 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:42.640 glaring inconsistency between Sydney's car and the perpetrator's car. It 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.040 just didn't match up. And then, of course the physical 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:47.880 description of the perpetrator didn't match up with Sidney either. 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:53.120 Yes, let's talk about their physical characteristics. What was the 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:55.920 description given of the man in the brown car. 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:01.880 So in his first deposition, Vincent said that the perpetrator 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:04.880 was five foot six. Vincent said that he himself was 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:07.800 five foot eight and the perpetrator was shorter. Than he was. 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.600 He described him as one hundred and seventy pounds, kind 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.719 of heavy set. He described him as a little bit overweight, 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:19.280 and that was not Sydney at the time of the crime. 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:24.280 Sidney just described to me then, what your height and 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.680 weight was at the time of the crime. When you 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:28.400 were twenty. 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.160 Two, I was six feet one hundred eighty three pounds. 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:32.680 She were a tall, skinny guy. 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.400 Yeah, six feet about one eighty three. 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:36.840 Got it. 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:41.080 The lead investigator in this case was Detective Robert Campbell, 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.480 and it does seem like he was focused on you 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:48.200 as the only suspect, despite the fact that the driver 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:52.680 of the oldsmobile was not even one of the armed robbers. Sydney, 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.680 when did you even get an inkling that the police 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.840 were setting their sights specifically on you? 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.840 My car at the time was Readyster. The address I 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.680 was using at that time was my grandmother's resident and 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:09.480 when they got to tag them rand his number to 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:11.880 the address, they came into the house and left a 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.400 business card. Satday, I need to contact them, these two detectives, 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.400 in which I did because I have nothing been high, 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:22.200 I haven't done anything. So I called them and they 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.120 came by questioned me and I actually take a photograph 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:27.960 to mirect. I didn't think anything was to that. I 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.920 gave him a photograph and that was that. That's the 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:33.920 first time. The next time I seen them, I was 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:35.360 being arrested for ann rovit. 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.320 Initially, the victims were shown what we would call mugg book, 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.440 which is essentially just a large book of photographs of 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:02.000 people who had previously been arrested for similar crimes, and 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.440 neither of the victims made an identification from the mug book. 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.720 Several days later, Sydney's license plate number was given to 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.000 the police, and that is the impetus for him becoming 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:17.040 a suspect in this case. And so the police created 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:21.440 a six pack, a photo lineup of six photos, including Sydney's, 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.480 using his booking photo from his prior arrest, from his 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.360 prior conviction in nineteen eighty four, which would have been 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:33.640 four years before this crime occurred, and neither of the 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.960 victims identified Sidney from that lineup. 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.800 But then, of course the photo that Sidney just talked about, 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.680 the one he freely agreed to give the police, came 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:45.520 into play exactly. 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.880 And so, as Sidney explained, you know, police came to 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.320 talk to him and he told them, you know, I 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.360 didn't do this. I have nothing to hide. Yes, of course, 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:58.160 please take a photograph of me, you know, expecting that 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.640 that photograph is going to help a limit him as 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:03.720 a suspect because he knew that he didn't commit this crime. 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.159 And so a second photo lineup was created using that 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.560 new photograph of Sydney that he agreed to take, and 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:14.080 five different people than from the filler photos in the 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:18.240 first lineup. And so Sidney is the only person that 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.159 was shown to the victims multiple times. 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.080 And it should be noted that Detective Campbell was the 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:27.960 one who administered every one of those lineups. 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.760 The female victim, she did not identify Sidney. She never 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.400 made an identification. In the case Vincent, the male victim, 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:40.240 he identified Sidney in the second lineup, and that's the 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.879 principal evidence used to convict him and Sidney. 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:49.440 You know, you were quite willing to assist the detectives 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:55.480 in their initial investigation, and turns out there wasn't much 0:17:55.720 --> 0:18:01.080 of an investigation because you were arrested on October sixth 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:03.080 of nineteen eighty eight. 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:07.359 That morning of October sixth, I was sitting at my parents' house, 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.919 actually talking to my father having breakfast at the kitchen table. 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.280 Then you know, to the the same to the technis 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:16.280 came knocking at the front door, say they had a 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:19.160 warrant for my arrest armed robbery. They took place at 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:23.359 this at that station. I'm looking at him saying, for robbery. 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.320 I haven't robbed anyone. So, you know, being the humble 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.159 god I am, you know, the Homer spirit. Okay, I 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:34.359 complied with law enforcement and I was arrested. You know, 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:35.880 I can't even put in the words what went through 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:37.960 my head. I'm saying, why is I being handcuffed? Why 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.680 is I being trout with something? Having done I'm twenty 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:43.720 two A while, you know, what did I do? I 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.639 was speaceless, go to the kind of jail I'm in 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:50.760 art trying to figure it, you know. But like I said, 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.119 you know, the resilient person I am. I stayed humble 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.840 through the process, you know, praying that you know, we 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.680 got a lawyer and hoping that the true fights that 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.439 come out. Apparently it didn't. 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.440 So a little over six months later, on April twenty fourth, 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.480 nineteen eighty nine, your trial began. Your defense attorney was 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:15.320 Mitchell Pole, and the prosecutor was Peter Magrino, So Brandon, 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:17.680 what did the prosecution present. 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.639 So essentially it's the identification of Sydney by one of 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:25.439 the two victims, and again that's only after the second 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:29.640 lineup that he was in, plus whatever stock you want 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:34.320 to put into his car being similar, although significantly different 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:38.520 than that of the perpetrator's car that he was driving 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.320 at the crime scene. I think it's also really important 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:46.000 to note that Milton was critical to the investigation, the 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:49.639 citizen's investigation that we described, but he was never called 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:53.960 to testify at mister Holmes's trial, so the jury never 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:58.560 heard his perspective and precisely what he did and what 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.080 he saw during his own an investigation. And that information 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:06.600 is critical because it's the exact reason why Sidney became 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:11.240 a suspect in the first place. And without that citizen investigation, 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.480 without what Milton did, Sidney would never have been a 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.399 suspect in this case. So the jury never heard that. 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:21.600 You know, Milton is looking for what happens to be 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.639 the most common car in the United States at that time, 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.200 and you're just kind of going about his day keeping 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.800 an eye out looking for that car, and the jury 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:33.920 never heard from him. And the only thing that put 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:37.080 Sidney in the crosshairs here is that he has, you know, 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:39.840 that type of car, and he's a young black man 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:45.560 with the prior arm robbery convictions, and so again that 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:49.360 kind of totality of the factors just leads police into 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.000 tunnel vision that he must have been the person who 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:52.879 committed this crime. 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.720 I'd also want to know that this identification was the 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.439 result of planting Sydney's image in Vincent's mind in the 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:04.320 first photo array in which he was not identified, followed 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.800 by an identification in the second after the seed had 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:12.800 been planted. Nevertheless, that was the state's case. So what 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:14.000 did the defense present? 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.320 So the defense's case was that this was a misidentification, 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:21.119 that essentially the state got the wrong guy, and to 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:28.240 bolster that misidentification defense, the defense presented several alibi witnesses that, 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.760 like Sidney said, he was at this Father's Day cookout 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:35.120 and because he was there, he could not have committed 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:39.560 this crime at the one stop. And so essentially what 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:42.560 it boils down to is you have on the state side, 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:48.200 the one identification from Vincent. Again that happened only after 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:50.760 the second time that he was shown a photo of Sydney. 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:55.119 And on the defensive side, you have, I believe, four 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:59.440 alibi witnesses who came into court and testified that Sydney 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:02.640 was at the father's did cookout at his parents' house, 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:06.040 and therefore could not have committed this crime. And so 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:09.080 you know, the jury chose the state's evidence, the victim's 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.800 identification in court over the alibi witnesses who said that 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:15.159 Sydney couldn't have possibly been at the crime scene. 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:19.159 Sydney. Can you just take me to what it was 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:20.840 like to sit inside that courtroom? 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:26.320 Well, you know, it was agony. You know, I thought 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:28.600 sure that I was going to be going home that 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:31.800 day because of lack of evidence, you know, and the 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:35.760 alibi witness and alab people's uh standing on the standing 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:41.879 total jerum wear my wayabouts. But when they deliberated, you know, 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:45.000 came back with it gives a verdict. You know, I 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:47.479 was completely and giving them four hundred er sentence at 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:52.560 age of twenty two, I was just devastating, you know 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.439 what a while, you know, and then I have a 0:22:55.480 --> 0:23:01.399 six month old child. I had a daughter that was 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:03.200 six months so all that was taking away. So I 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:07.719 seen none of the childhood. She was two days from 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:12.359 being seven months old when I got arrested. I've been 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:37.679 in prisonbe thirty four years. My life is just, you know, 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:40.160 just a snappery my eye. It was gone for something 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:45.080 I haven't done. So how can I feel I was 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:48.520 feeling empty? I was, I was devastated, you know. So 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:53.280 I don't know, It's just it was just a day 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:57.919 that I would never forget. But to day I just 0:23:57.920 --> 0:24:00.840 want to move on from. 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:05.919 So Sidney was not ever accused of being one of 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:11.000 the guys involved in an armed robbery. He's accused of 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:14.600 being a guy who drives by and says, hey, you 0:24:14.600 --> 0:24:19.240 should take that car, and then drives away. And based 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:24.880 on that, prosecution recommends eight hundred and twenty five years, 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:28.120 and he gets sentenced to four hundred. 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:32.520 Yeah, that's correct. Four hundred was a compromise. The prosecutor 0:24:32.600 --> 0:24:35.080 asks for eight hundred and twenty five years. The defense 0:24:35.080 --> 0:24:37.639 attorney came back and said, well, forty years would be 0:24:37.680 --> 0:24:39.240