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Thread: Robert DuBoise - Florida

  1. #1
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    Robert DuBoise - Florida





    Florida man serving life sentence for murder, rape cleared by DNA evidence over 30 years later


    A Tampa man who was serving a life sentence after being accused of committing a murder and rape he wasn’t guilty of has been cleared by DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project and the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office.

    Robert DuBoise spent 37 years in Florida State Prison for the death of Barbara Grams, a 19-year-old Tampa woman people found beaten to death behind a dental practice in 1983, NBC affiliate WFLA reported.

    Articles from the time reported that hair, saliva, and blood samples from the scene were inclusive. However, a jury convicted DuBoise based on reconstructed bite marks that the prosecution argued matched his teeth, and the testimony of another state inmate.

    The jury recommended a life sentence, but the judge, Harry Coe, overruled and gave Duboise the death penalty. A few years later, DuBoise appealed and his sentence was reduced back to life in prison.

    DNA evidence that was thought to be “lost” was found during an 11 month review of DuBoise’s case. It found that he was not a match for forensic evidence collected from the murder investigation, according to a spokesperson from the state attorney’s office.

    The Innocence Project is representing DuBoise and is trying to get him released from the Hardee Correctional Institution as soon as possible.

    (source: NBC News)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #2
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    On the night of Nov. 23, as an excited crowd of 15,730 fans settled into their seats inside Raymond James Stadium, a 56-year-old man leaned over a railing and stared down into the tunnel where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers gathered. He had thinning, grayish-black hair, and a pewter Bucs jersey bearing the No. 1 covered his slender torso. COVID-19 protocols stipulated that he keep his mouth and nose covered by a mask, but there was little doubt Robert DuBoise was smiling. After serving nearly 37 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, he was about to watch his first football game in person, as a special guest of the Buccaneers.

    DuBoise's eyes lit up as the players huddled together before jogging out to face the Los Angeles Rams on Monday Night Football. He scanned the group in search of Ali Marpet and Alex Cappa, two Bucs guards who had been so inspired by DuBoise's story, they arranged a Zoom call with him following his release in August. DuBoise eventually noticed another Bucs lineman who had been on that same call, left tackle Donovan Smith, who waved frantically to attract DuBoise's attention.

    "He was right there," Smith said. "I don't even think he recognized me or even knew who I was at first until I yelled. I'm like, 'Yo, Robert, what's up?' And then you saw him smile."

    Of all the people in that stadium that night, DuBoise might have been the only one who wasn't upset that the Bucs ultimately lost. His life had taught him far more about serious trauma: wrongfully convicted of murder as a teenager, caged with killers on death row for years, forced to watch decades pass by as so many people in power ignored his pleas for justice. Those Bucs players knew all this when they reached out to DuBoise. Like the three friends who attended that game with him -- as well as all the others who stuck with them through his journey -- they wanted to make sure his new lease on life started with as much support as possible.

    So DuBoise was there because the Bucs wanted to make him feel good. What he couldn't grasp was how much of an impact he'd already made on them.

    "The most shocking thing for me after talking to him was his appreciation," Marpet said. "I think it would be totally justified for him to be pissed off. And the most surprising thing for me is his gratitude for freedom."

    The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are enjoying their best season in nearly two decades, a campaign that has brought them their first Super Bowl berth since they won it all in 2002. But they've also been doing something more powerful off the field; they're finding ways to help DuBoise restart his life.

    DuBoise could've died in jail without most people ever knowing the slightest detail about him. Today, he's the embodiment of what can happen if hope, faith and determination intersect at exactly the right time. This is a story with two elements: It's about an innocent man finally having his life returned to him and a pro football team helping him figure out what to do with it next.

    The players would be the first to admit they're playing a small role in DuBoise's journey through his newfound freedom. DuBoise would be the first to say every bit of help he receives at this stage of his life means everything.

    Even that Zoom call, which lasted about 30 minutes, warmed his heart.

    "I tried to answer all their questions the best I could," DuBoise said. "I was just touched by their caring. I was touched by the fact that they cared enough to get involved just because they read the story."

    The gestures the Bucs have made so far matter, because nearly everything DuBoise does these days involves either a sense of wonderment or intimidation. When he walked out of Hardee Correctional Institution in Bowling Green, Florida, on Aug. 27, his fellow inmates cheered his release. DuBoise then strolled into a nearby CVS later that night with his attorney, Susan Friedman, and found himself staring at the shelves, daunted by the task of selecting a toothbrush when so many choices were available. The same man who had never touched an iPhone spent his first evening of freedom gazing at the stars, largely because he was so accustomed to not sleeping through the nights while in jail.

    DuBoise spends most of his days trying to find steady work. He uses the handyman skills he learned in prison whenever possible. A few weeks after his release, he drove over an hour from Tampa to Haines City to help a woman who'd been struggling with the hot water in her house. By the time he left, he'd fixed her water heater and washer, as well.

    DuBoise probably wouldn't have been able to travel that far for work without the pickup truck he bought after his release. Between Marpet, Cappa, Smith and a team match, the Bucs gave him $25,000 to help restart his life. The money immediately helped DuBoise with his goal of finding odd jobs.

    "Without it, I could do none of it," DuBoise said. "I couldn't go to work. I couldn't have the tools in it. I got all the tools I need in the truck, and I can go anywhere. And when I get to a house, I have everything I need already."

    "There's not much you can tell a guy who's been done so wrong," Cappa said. "There's so little that we can do for him. So, it felt good to at least give him something to hopefully get him going a little bit."

    DuBoise doesn't take any act of kindness for granted. Instead of being bitter about spending so much of his life in prison, he tries to do his own part to make the world a better place. He wakes up every morning around 4, sips on a cup of coffee while watching the local news and then prepares sack lunches for the homeless. He packs granola bars, bottled water and canned goods with pop-off lids so the recipients can access those meals whenever they please.

    It's that level of sensitivity that makes DuBoise so special. Maxson Gallo, a former paralegal for the Innocence Project -- the organization that led the charge on DuBoise's exoneration -- was surprised by a box of candy he received on his birthday a few months ago. It was from DuBoise, who had remembered the special occasion. When Friedman would call to offer updates on his case, DuBoise would end up spending much of the time asking her how she was doing. She had to remind him that he was the one who needed extra attention.

    "Robert is the same person he was when he was incarcerated," Friedman said. "He is good-hearted. He is mindful of others. He cares about others. Every time I talk to him and I ask him what he's done that day, he tells me that he was out at a neighbor's house, helping them fix something, or that there was a mother with two kids who needed her air conditioning fixed and he was working on that for her. He wants to help other people. That's the way he was when he was in prison."

    There's something rare about a person who can walk into jail as a frightened, devastated teenager and emerge as a humble, selfless adult. DuBoise downplays that spirit he brings to every day of his life, but it's clear he's learned that true freedom isn't solely about being on the outside of a prison. It's about what you believe, how you endure, and the peace you find in your heart and mind. Not once did he let his cursed situation break him.

    In fact, his story is so compelling that people from all over the world have sent letters of encouragement, and even tools, after hearing details of his journey.

    "Right now, our country and the world is experiencing COVID, and everyone's dealing with their own hardships every day," Gallo said. "And they're looking for reasons to hold on and stories that inspire them to hold on. And Robert is that living example of someone who held on through what is arguably one of the most trying and painful things someone can experience -- wrongful conviction and incarceration. And he kept fighting for 40 years every day. People are inspired by that."

    The players didn't know what to say. They fidgeted and stewed and sat anxiously in their seats as the seconds ticked by on that Nov. 18 Zoom call. They had come up with the idea after Marpet read about DuBoise's release in the Tampa Bay Times a few weeks earlier, but there was a different vibe now that it was actually happening. It was easy to want to connect with DuBoise. It was much harder to think about what you'd ask somebody who'd had his life ripped away from him.

    When DuBoise's face popped onto the screen, that nervousness intensified.

    "I thought we would have more to say, but we were all kind of speechless," Cappa said. "It was very inspiring for us to talk to him because he's such an upbeat guy and you wouldn't know that he's been done so wrong with how positive his outlook is."

    DuBoise couldn't get into all the details of his story during that call. His journey involved too many twists and turns, tragic moments followed by the constant hope of ending a brutal nightmare.

    It goes all the way back to the night of Aug. 18, 1983, when somebody beat, raped and murdered a 19-year-old woman named Barbara Grams after she left her restaurant job at a Tampa shopping mall. DuBoise, 18 at the time, became a suspect in the case initially because he routinely hung out at a grocery store located near the crime scene, although no witnesses ever placed him there on the night of Grams' death.

    Police focused on a circular wound on Grams' left cheek. Detectives eventually got DuBoise and other local men to agree to have molds taken of their teeth. A forensic dentist concluded that it was DuBoise who left the bite mark on Grams' cheek.

    There was nothing else to link him to the crime, except for testimony from a jailhouse informant who claimed DuBoise had made self-incriminating statements while he was incarcerated and awaiting trial (that informant later agreed to a plea deal that reduced his life sentence to five years). Police didn't find DuBoise's fingerprints at the scene, and none of his hair was on Grams' body. Those factors made DuBoise's lawyers feel confident his trial would end in an acquittal. Instead, a jury deliberated for two days before finding him guilty of first-degree murder and attempted sexual battery.

    That same jury recommended a life sentence, but the presiding judge, Harry Lee Coe III (he earned the nickname "Hangin' Harry" for his harsh sentencing), decided a death sentence was appropriate.

    "I just couldn't believe it," DuBoise said. "I was just dumbfounded. I sat there and the attorneys kept telling me everything's fine, you've got nothing to worry about. And then I hear the guilty verdict and then the death sentence. And I'm like, I can't believe it. It was just like a nightmare."

    DuBoise had that same sense of shock as he stepped onto a bus headed toward Florida State prison at 2:30 the following morning. He felt more devastated as he trudged up a long ramp into the correctional facility, stripped off the suit he'd worn to trial and donned the blue uniform provided to all inmates. The walk to his cell on death row was the most painful part. He peeked into each one of the six cells before he reached his own and noticed that every prisoner "seemed like they were just waiting to die because they were just completely glum."

    It didn't take long for DuBoise to relate. The first and only time he cried in jail came a few days after his arrival.

    "I was just sitting there day after day," he said. "I'd just sit there sometimes late at night. I'd think about my family and the people around me that were also facing death, and some of them, a lot of them got executed while I was there. I just thought, this is really hopeless."

    The more DuBoise talked, the more the Bucs players couldn't believe what they were hearing. They knew he'd been incarcerated in cells next to notorious serial killers like Ted Bundy, and that DuBoise had written to various media outlets, including Dateline and 60 Minutes, to tell his story. They hadn't heard about other details, like how DuBoise learned electrical and plumbing skills so he could stay busy fixing things around the prison. Even that passion presented unexpected burdens for him.

    "He got asked to do (electrical) work for the electric chair," Donovan Smith said. "I'm speechless, just even thinking about it again. You know -- the audacity to have someone ask you on death row to fix something that could potentially kill you one day. I don't even know how to even compartmentalize any of that."

    DuBoise spent time in six correctional facilities. His sentence was reduced to life in prison in 1988. He kept his spirits up by reading the Bible relentlessly and attending routine meetings with a church group. And then he discovered The Innocence Project after reading a John Grisham novel entitled The Innocent Man, a book that referenced the organization's commitment to exonerating wrongfully convicted prisoners and their success in overturning convictions.

    DuBoise wrote a letter to The Innocence Project, outlining all the pain he'd endured and all the hopes he still harbored for being a free man. The letter reached Friedman in 2018, and she agreed to take the case.

    "What stood out about Robert's case is that it was completely based on two of the contributing factors to wrongful convictions: faulty forensic evidence and a jailhouse informant," Friedman said. "The entire case against Robert was built around bite-mark evidence, which has now been completely discredited by and rejected by the scientific community."

    Marpet's first impulse after reading about DuBoise's story was to take it to the Buccaneers' social justice player committee. That group included players like Marpet, Smith, cornerback Carlton Davis and punter Bradley Pinion. That committee evolved over the past few years as the NFL devoted more attention and resources to social justice initiatives. Though the board hadn't been doing anything related to exonerated prisoners, it was obvious that DuBoise's situation fit perfectly within the foundational values of the group.

    "It was important to us because, with the social justice team that we have here, it just fell right in line with what we wanted to do," Smith said. "Police reform, helping out in the community, helping out people, and he's a Tampa native."

    Before long, the players were discussing DuBoise's story with other teammates in the locker room. There was a sentiment that the team should do something, which led to players throwing in money to help him restart his life. They didn't know anything that was happening with DuBoise at that stage. They only knew they wanted to do something to help.

    So, they started with a simple step: They contacted him.

    "I don't know why they would want to reach out to me," DuBoise said, "but they did."

    Said Marpet: "My first thought after reading the story was, I need to hear his opinion, hear his thoughts and his perspective. And I think that was what I was most excited to listen to. I'm grateful that we got that opportunity."

    The Zoom call was the first meaningful moment in their interaction. When it ended, the players told Robert about the financial gift and the invitation to the game. As he watched the action on that Monday night from his south end zone seats, he found himself staring all around, as if he was a child experiencing his first amusement-park trip. When the fourth quarter began, some Bucs officials led him to the stadium's trademark pirate ship, where he watched the remainder of the contest.

    It was a surreal night for DuBoise, who already had been experiencing so many thrilling moments. He voted for the first time in his life a couple weeks prior to attending the game. A few days after that contest, DuBoise spent Thanksgiving with his mother and his 92-year-old aunt. Predictably, he arrived early to help them set up the table and "make sure all the work wasn't on them."

    Moments like that help DuBoise deal with some of the challenges that come with being an exoneree. He's been living at The Sunny Center, a local non-profit that provides housing for exonerated prisoners, largely because he doesn't have enough income for his own place. The process of finding legal identification was daunting at times, because somebody released from prison only leaves with a state ID issued by the facility, which isn't valid for opening a bank account or even purchasing a phone (DuBoise now has a driver's license).

    The biggest challenge DuBoise faces today is one that sadly involves the legal system. Florida is one of 35 states that offers compensation to exonerated prisoners -- awards that can sometimes mean millions of dollars -- but the process is very restrictive. The state doesn't provide compensation to people who have a non-violent felony conviction. Since DuBoise was arrested and later placed on probation for stealing car parts when he was 17 years old, he doesn't qualify to receive any money for the time he wrongfully spent in prison.


    "It's really hard to re-enter society (after) having spent decades in prison and with the added burden of being innocent," Friedman said. "So, while there is a lot of support that he can receive, there's a lot that he also can't do. Financial assistance provides security, a home. And it's really hard also for him to find employment. He has just spent decades with nothing to put on his resume. Having compensation could be incredibly useful to him in terms of helping him rebuild his life."

    The one thing DuBoise has working in his favor these days is patience. Nearly four decades spent wrongfully incarcerated for a heinous crime taught him all about that. There were plenty of days during his incarceration that he followed a familiar routine: work a job somewhere in the facility, return to his cell, listen to music, paint, maybe write a letter or watch the local news and then read his Bible. The whole goal then, as DuBoise said, was "to stay away from the negativity. If there were negative people around, I just didn't feel good about it."

    These days, DuBoise takes nothing for granted.

    "I go down by Tampa Bay or Bayshore [Boulevard], or even the riverwalk ... and I just appreciate all of it. I can see the beauty in God's creation, everywhere, all the trees. I was at a place where, for like the first 16 or 17 years, I couldn't even touch a tree. There were no trees, no flowers and half the time there's not even grass. So, I appreciate all of it."

    The Bucs players also want to continue to do their part.

    "If Robert can live a life that feels fulfilling to him, I think that's the ultimate goal," Marpet said. "Hopefully, we can play a very small part in piecing that journey together for him."

    "Obviously, we're going to stay in contact," Smith added. "We're definitely going to see what we can do (as far as) getting him some type of work (related to his) skillset. We're just going to stay on it and hopefully get him in touch with the right people so he can get his life started again."

    Friedman knows how much it meant to DuBoise that the Bucs have forged a relationship. It's one more indication of how many people are out there rooting for him. She acknowledged DuBoise has been scarred by the injustices of the legal system to the extent that "he'll never be whole again," but Friedman is also excited to see people who want to help him try.

    "It was really exciting for him to get to meet these talented players who also really obviously cared about what was going on in their community," Friedman said. "Robert was wronged by the system, and now to have so many people reach out and want to help him is incredibly meaningful and heartwarming."

    DuBoise agreed.

    "When I first went in (to prison), the despair made you feel like everything was hopeless," he said. "So there was a lot of depression at the beginning, and even in between, but at some point I just had to say, 'You know what, I got to keep my faith and I just got to focus and I know God's going to get me through this.' And He did."

    https://www.nfl.com/news/sidelines/i...rom-buccaneers
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  3. #3
    Wilso
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    Compensation sought for man exonerated in Tampa murder after 37 years in prison

    The proposals would pay Robert DuBoise $1.85 million, $50,000 for each year he was incarcerated.

    Two Tampa Bay-area lawmakers this week filed proposals that would compensate a man who was wrongfully incarcerated for 37 years in a 1983 murder.

    Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, and Rep. Andrew Learned, D-Brandon, filed similar bills (SB 52 and HB 6501) to pay $1.85 million to Robert Earl DuBoise. The bills were filed for consideration during the 2022 legislative session, which will start Jan. 11.

    DuBoise was arrested in the August 1983 murder of a woman in Tampa and was convicted of murder and attempted sexual battery in 1985. He spent three years on Death Row before the Florida Supreme Court in 1988 vacated his death sentence, according to the bills.

    DuBoise maintained his innocence, and the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office in 2020 concluded after a review that the conviction should be vacated. Prosecutors also declined to retry DuBoise.

    A news release last year from the Innocence Project of Florida said DuBoise was imprisoned at age 18 and that his conviction was “based largely on the expert bite mark analysis testimony that is now known to be junk science, and unreliable, incentivized testimony from a jailhouse informant.”

    The $1.85 million would equate to $50,000 for each year DuBoise was incarcerated.

    https://www.tampabay.com/news/florid...rs-in-prison/#

  4. #4
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    Man formerly on Florida death row says Tampa police framed him, files lawsuit

    A Florida man who was on death row and exonerated 37 years later is now suing the City of Tampa, officers on the case and a forensic consultant for allegedly framing him for the rape and murder of a Tampa woman.

    Robert DuBoise was released from prison in 2020 following a reexamination of the case by the Conviction Review Unit in the Office of the State Attorney for the 13th Judicial Circuit. The case stems from the 1983 murder and rape of 19-year-old Barbara Grams.

    DuBoise was 18-years-old at the time, and was convicted in 1985. According to the Florida Innocence Project, DuBoise was sentenced to death by Judge Harry Lee Coe III, despite a jury recommendation of a life sentence.

    In 1988, the death sentence was vacated in favor of life in prison.

    According to the State Attorney’s Office, some evidence from the case was presumed to have been destroyed in the intervening years.

    In August 2020, an attorney with the CRU found rape kit samples that had not been used during DuBoise’s trial. It was submitted for DNA testing by the Innocence Project and showed that DuBoise’s DNA was not present. Instead, genetic evidence in the sample came from 2 other men.

    According to the Innocence Project, “Knowing that their physical evidence was poor at best, the defendant officers allegedly then conspired to get two informants, including one suspect facing a long-term sentence for unrelated crimes, to turn state’s evidence.

    One suspect falsely claimed that DuBoise confessed the murder to him, but his story changed significantly in various recountings. This witnesses allegedly failed a polygraph test, but that and other exculpatory evidence was suppressed by the defendant officers.”

    As a result of the CRU investigation, the state of Florida pronounced DuBoise’s case a nolle prosequi, or a formal abandonment of the case on Sept. 14, 2020. His motion for postconviction relief was approved and his judgment was vacated, but the amount of the settlement has complicated receiving what DuBoise is owed by Florida.

    The investigation by CRU and the Innocence Project is reportedly the first such audit performed by a unit of its type.

    Typically, the state provides $50,000 per year of wrongful incarceration for those imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. At almost 37 years behind bars, DuBoise would be owed $1.85 million. To see that money, the state legislature must vote to approve the amount and pay it.

    Florida lawmakers have started that process.

    Hillsborough County’s Rep. Andrew Learned for Florida House District 59, submitted HB 6501 to the legislature for the 2022 session. State Sen. Jeff Brandes submitted SB 52 as well.

    Sen. Brandes’s office responded to a request for comment by 8 On Your Side, saying in part:

    Mr. DuBoise was convicted in 1985 of capital murder and attempted sexual battery. He was ultimately sentenced to life in prison. Since his arrest, Mr. DuBoise has maintained his innocence. Recently, the Conviction Review Unit (CRU) in the State Attorney’s office reviewed the case. Following a comprehensive investigation, the CRU determined Mr. DuBoise did not commit the crimes. DNA evidence excluded him as the assailant, and it identified another person in CODIS. The CRU also issued a lengthy and detailed report concluding that his convictions should be vacated and that he should be exonerated of all charges. This claims bill awards compensation in the amount of $1.85 million, representing $50,000 per year for each year Mr. DuBoise was wrongfully incarcerated. -

    Statement from Sen. Jeff Brandes on SB 52

    Both bills, if either version passes during the 2022 session, would approve the monetary relief owed by the state for his years wrongfully in prison.

    “Taking a man’s liberty, almost his life, is an unconscionable error by our State. DNA evidence that was initially ignored fingered the real criminal so now Robert is free, but without any compensation for what we took from him,” Rep. Learned said in a statement on Twitter.

    In addition to the settlement with the state over his incarceration, DuBoise is also suing the police officers who worked the case leading to his wrongful conviction, as well as the City of Tampa and forensic odontologist Dr. Richard R. Souviron.

    The complaint filed by DuBoise’s legal team alleges that Tampa detectives and Dr. Souviron fabricated evidence and conspired to secure his wrongful conviction. The lawsuit names Richard R. Souviron, Det. Phillip Saladino, Det. K.E. Burke, the Estate of Det. John Counsman, and Sgt. R.H. Price, and the City of Tampa as defendants and seeks damages for DuBoise’s time in prison and requests a trial by jury.

    Det. Counsman died before the legal complaint was filed, according to the document, his estate is named as defendant in his place.

    Responding to a request for comment, the Tampa Police Department said they do not comment on pending litigation.

    (source: WFLA news)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #5
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    Man formerly on Florida death row, denied compensation after being wrongfully incarcerated

    A man who spent 37 years in state prison for a rape and murder he didn’t commit is also being barred from being compensated for his wrongful conviction.

    Robert DuBoise was released from prison in 2020 following a reexamination of the case by the Conviction Review Unit in the Office of the State Attorney for the 13th Judicial Circuit. The case stems from the 1983 murder and rape of 19-year-old Barbara Grams.

    Now efforts are underway to eliminate or bypass the so-called “clean hands” provision that bars compensation if there had been previous convictions.

    DuBoise was 18-years-old at the time, and was convicted in 1985. According to the Florida Innocence Project, DuBoise was sentenced to death by Judge Harry Lee Coe III, despite a jury recommendation of a life sentence.

    In 1988, the death sentence was vacated in favor of life in prison.

    According to the State Attorney’s Office, some evidence from the case was presumed to have been destroyed in the intervening years.

    In August 2020, an attorney with the CRU found rape kit samples that had not been used during DuBoise’s trial. It was submitted for DNA testing by the Innocence Project and showed that DuBoise’s DNA was not present. Instead, genetic evidence in the sample came from 2 other men.

    Over 11 months, the Innocence Project worked with the CRU to investigate the conviction, and determined that DuBoise did not commit the crime. The SAO filed a motion to release DuBoise after nearly 37 years in prison, 3 of which were on death row. On Aug. 27, 2020, DuBoise walked free.

    Duboise has maintained his innocence the entire time.

    “You just got to keep your faith. That’s what it’s about. You’ve got to have patience. It’s easy to get in there, but it’s hard to prove your Innoncence once you’re in,” said Duboise.

    His problem is that he had previously been sent to prison for nonviolent felonies. Under Florida law, anyone wrongly convicted seeking compensation must have a clean record.

    State Senator Jeff Brandes has filed legislation waiving the clean hands provision for Duboise.

    “We’ve taken a portion of their lives as a state then they should be compensated for that wrongful conviction,” said Brandes.

    State law sets payments for wrongful convictions at $50,000 a year. In Mr. Duboise’s case, he would qualify for $1.85 million.

    In 2020, lawmakers waived the clean hands requirement for Clifford Williams. If they do the same for Duboise, he’s already got a plan in place.

    “I would get me a house, which I’ve never had, and just concentrate on the future. Invest, and just keep pushing forward,” said Duboise.

    Even if the money comes through, Duboise told us he’s going to keep working.

    Since his release last fall, Duboise has been working as a handyman, doing small construction and maintenance projects.

    The legislation also apologizes for the wrong, and provides Duboise with 120 hours of trade school or college free at a state institution.

    (source: WFLA news)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  6. #6
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mastro Titta's Avatar
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    In my opinion, this is outrageous. They robbed this man of 37 years of his life, they destroyed his existence, and now they deny him an adequate compensation, which is the minimum they could have done for him. Simply outrageous.

  7. #7
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    2 serving life sentences accused in more slayings in suspected rape and murder spree in Florida

    By Doha Madani
    NBC News

    Two men have been charged in two Tampa Bay-area cold-case murders based on DNA evidence that exonerated a death-row inmate.

    Their indictments in the decades-old cases were announced Thursday.

    Robert Duboise was wrongfully convicted of the capital murder of Barbara Grams, a 19-year-old who was raped and found beaten to death behind a dental office in Tampa in 1983.

    He was released in August 2020 after DNA evidence was tested in the case, according to The Innocence Project, which represented him.

    A conviction review unit continued to investigate, and the DNA evidence identified Amos Robinson and Abraham Scott as suspects, according to the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office. The investigation also tied Scott and Robinson to another unsolved rape and murder from the same year, the prosecutor's office said.

    Linda Lanson, a freelance photographer, was fatally shot in the head and dumped in the bushes by a highway in July 1983.

    “These men are serial murderers and rapists, and although they’re already serving life sentences, their crimes against Barbara Grams and Linda Lanson cannot — and will not — go unpunished,” Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said.

    Warren provided the update in the cases Thursday, despite being suspended from office by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier in the day. The governor said Warren’s refusal to enforce restrictions on abortion and gender-affirming therapy for minors showed Warren was neglecting his duty.

    Warren said the two men conducted a “sinister spree of rape and murder” in the Tampa Bay area in 1983.

    Robinson and Scott are already serving life sentences for the murder of a man who was kidnapped, beaten and run over with his own car in October 1983.

    On Thursday, a grand jury indicted them in the rapes and murders of Grams and Lanson. Robinson was previously charged with a murder in 1991, but the case never went to trial due to a lack of evidence, Warren said.

    It's unclear if the two men have retained attorneys in the rapes and murders of Lanson and Grams.

    Lanson's niece, Linda Sheffield, thanked Warren and law enforcement for finding justice for her aunt, who she called a beautiful artist and photographer who was a "strong, determined, warm and wonderful woman."

    "There are no words to describe what it is to go through 39 years of grief and not knowing what had happened," Sheffield said. "You know, I think at some point you stop and you forget about the criminals and you start to realize the void ... that is there for someone who helped you for so long."

    Lanson's daughter declined to speak to reporters Thursday, but Warren read a statement on her behalf. She expressed gratitude to everyone involved for their diligence in working on her mother's cold case.

    "For me, the loss of my beautiful mother will remain a waking nightmare," the statement said. "But I thank them for at least bringing me some closure."

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...nson-rcna41596
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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