Cheydrick Britt with legal team, Seth Miller, Mike Minvera and Melissa Montle.
Derrick Williams got life. Two consecutive life sentences for charges including kidnapping and sexual battery. It would seem a fitting consequence, given the ghastly details of what happened to one woman on an August afternoon in 1992. But if the punishment fit the crime, it did not fit the man. Eighteen years into his sentence, Derrick Williams got his life back, but he – and his family – will never be the same. In 2006 Williams’ sister-in-law wrote a letter to the Innocence Project of Florida (IPF) with an entreaty to look into his case. To date, Florida has exonerated 14 men after DNA testing proved their innocence. These men served a combined 268 years for someone else’s crime. Williams was number 13. He recently spoke to a room full of attorneys, community-minded business people and students at a fundraising breakfast held in Naples. Attorney Gerald “Jerry” Berry coordinated and hosted the event, which was also attended by IPF attorneys and staff. The Tallahassee-based practice covers 67 counties, providing the services of two lawyers, one paralegal and several interns. Berry thanked everyone in the crowded room for springing for the $100-a-plate bacon and eggs. While the Inn on Fifth did an excellent job with those morning staples, the food was an afterthought for supporters of this busy organization that provides evidence of actual innocence, as Berry emphasized. He then introduced Executive Director Seth Miller, adding that through the efforts of a small team of dedicated attorneys, the freedom of these men has been restored. It is an underdog of an operation. DNA testing is not a lowcost proposition, for one thing. Before any action gets that far, the 501(C)3 organization thoroughly vets each one of its possible candidates. Even after its comprehensive review process, testing confirms guilt in some cases. On rare occasions,
prosecutors cooperate with the post-conviction operation. More often than not, IPF comes up against a disintegrating bread crumb trail of shoddy police and judicial procedures that lead to misidentification, failure to apply the appropriate science, perjured testimony and other confounding factors. In the case of Derrick Williams, the Manatee County Sheriff ’s Office was found to have illegally destroyed most of the evidence, including the rape kit and a hair sample that was expected to prove exculpatory. After a year’s worth of work and the help of a newspaper reporter, the organization found that in all, about 4,000 cases of evidence had been destroyed by mass incineration. An April 29, 2009 piece titled Destroyed Evidence Surprises Manatee Lawyers suggested the Sarasota Herald-Tribune’s inquiries were met with some degree of indignation. Reporter Todd Ruger quoted a spokesperson for the Manatee Sheriff ’s Office as saying, “If they were pending cases, hey, there would have been a major problem. It just happened. It’s not like someone was going in there and taking the stuff.” The revelation caused a ripple among defense attorneys in that area, who had not been notified the evidence would be summarily destroyed after reportedly molding on account of a water leak at a rented bank vault. Fortunately, the t-shirt worn by the perpetrator was stored at the Clerk of the Court’s Office. DNA testing revealed a mixture of individuals who had worn the shirt, but Williams was not in the mix. One wonders: how many others’ second chance went up in flames? Had a private firm done all the legwork, attorney fees alone would have been more than $210,000. Following is a breakdown of the 1,823 hours involved in the Williams case: April 2014 | RES GESTAE
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