US: Wrongly convicted Miami man released after 30 years

Thomas Raynard James was 23 when he was convicted of murdering Francis McKinnon, who was shot dead on January 17, 1990 in front of his family after two thieves broke into their home.

Neighbours identified two men, Vincent Williams and Tommy James, as the perpetrators. Prosecutors, however, charged Mr James, who was from another part of the city, after Mr McKinnon’s stepdaughter, Dorothy Walton, picked him out from a line-up of photos.

There was no physical evidence connecting Mr James to the crime, yet Ms Walton told jurors she was convinced it was him.

“I am positive of it,” she said. “I will never forget his face.”

Last autumn, however, investigators in the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office reviewed the case. Ms Walton told them she thought she had made a mistake.

Prosecutors then filed a motion seeking for the conviction of Mr James to be overturned..

“What appears to be a chance coincidence, that the defendant, Thomas Raynard James, had the same name as a suspect named by witnesses and anonymous tipsters led to the defendant’s photograph being included in a line-up and set in motion a [case of] mistaken identity,” they said.

Mr James gathered evidence of his innocence over the decades he spent in prison. His lawyer, Natalie Figgers, credited journalist Tristram Korten with bringing to case to the attention of the authorities. Mr Korten wrote about it for GQ magazine.

Mr James may now sue the authorities for wrongful conviction.