Florida Innocence ProjectSupporters say his DNA not at the scene, seek his release.
For half his life, Billy Joe Holton has been serving a life prison sentence for raping a Jacksonville woman in her home in 1986.
Now DNA tests show he’s innocent, said lawyers for the same nonprofit firm that has helped free seven other Florida prisoners.
The Innocence Project of Florida asked a judge last week to vacate Holton’s conviction and sentence based on three matching semen stains found on a blanket that covered the victim during the attack. The state agreed in 2003 to allow testing of the stains and the results, received about a year ago, showed no match to Holton, 42.
“We feel really good about these results, and we think they are strikingly clear,” said Seth Miller, the group’s executive director. He is working with Jacksonville attorney Bill Sheppard to free Holton.
Prosecutors are reviewing the case and aren’t ready to concede anything yet. The absence of Holton’s DNA on the blanket doesn’t automatically clear him, Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi said.
But if the DNA doesn’t match Holton’s co-defendant, whose testimony put Holton away, then “we’ve got a major issue,” Mizrahi said.
“If it’s not his, then based on my brief perusal of the file, I think they might be right,” he said. “If the guy’s innocent, he should go free.”
The woman was repeatedly raped by two men who broke into her Springfield home. They took turns holding her 7-year-old son. When they left, they told her to stay under the floral blanket they’d used to cover her, Miller said. Eventually she and the boy fled to a neighbor’s and called police. The woman has since died, and her son now lives out of state.
Miller said the victim told police she hadn’t had sex in six months and regularly washed her bedclothes, so the stains are believed to have come from the rape.
Holton was walking in the neighborhood the same morning. He said he was en route to a nearby bakery to borrow a friend’s car. Miller said the victim told police she couldn’t identify her attackers, but her son said Holton wasn’t one of the assailants. The boy later testified for the defense at Holton’s trial.
The case went cold until a year later when a prison informant came forward and implicated Holton and Tim Smith, now 40. The victim picked Holton out of a lineup. The record’s unclear if she picked Smith, too, but both were charged with sexual battery, kidnapping, armed robbery, burglary and aggravated assault.
Just before trial, Smith accepted a deal to testify against Holton. He pleaded guilty to burglary and got a time-served sentence, court records show. Holton, who had previously been to prison for burglary and grand theft, was convicted of all counts and sentenced to life.
In 2005 the blanket was tested by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Its tests yielded no results, so a second agreement was reached in 2007 to test the blanket at a private lab, paid for by the Innocence Project of Florida. Those tests showed the three sperm samples on the blanket all appeared to originate from the same man and definitively excluded Holton as the donor.
Miller said it took a year to file the motion to vacate because the Innocence Project did further investigation into the case to make sure it was on solid legal ground. The project has been involved with seven of the 10 other Florida prisoners freed because of DNA since 2003. They include Chad Heins, who had been incarcerated since 1994 for murdering his sister-in-law in Mayport until new tests sprung him in 2007.
Mizrahi said he will now conduct his own investigation that will include finding and interviewing Smith and comparing his DNA to the unknown samples. That could take some time, he said.
Miller described Holton as cautiously optimistic about the results.
“Most of these guys in this position, they realize we have a long way to go and it isn’t over until the judge says it’s over,” Miller said.
paul.pinkham@jacksonville.com,
(904) 359-4107
For half his life, Billy Joe Holton has been serving a life prison sentence for raping a Jacksonville woman in her home in 1986.
Now DNA tests show he’s innocent, said lawyers for the same nonprofit firm that has helped free seven other Florida prisoners.
The Innocence Project of Florida asked a judge last week to vacate Holton’s conviction and sentence based on three matching semen stains found on a blanket that covered the victim during the attack. The state agreed in 2003 to allow testing of the stains and the results, received about a year ago, showed no match to Holton, 42.
“We feel really good about these results, and we think they are strikingly clear,” said Seth Miller, the group’s executive director. He is working with Jacksonville attorney Bill Sheppard to free Holton.
Prosecutors are reviewing the case and aren’t ready to concede anything yet. The absence of Holton’s DNA on the blanket doesn’t automatically clear him, Assistant State Attorney Alan Mizrahi said.
But if the DNA doesn’t match Holton’s co-defendant, whose testimony put Holton away, then “we’ve got a major issue,” Mizrahi said.
“If it’s not his, then based on my brief perusal of the file, I think they might be right,” he said. “If the guy’s innocent, he should go free.”
The woman was repeatedly raped by two men who broke into her Springfield home. They took turns holding her 7-year-old son. When they left, they told her to stay under the floral blanket they’d used to cover her, Miller said. Eventually she and the boy fled to a neighbor’s and called police. The woman has since died, and her son now lives out of state.
Miller said the victim told police she hadn’t had sex in six months and regularly washed her bedclothes, so the stains are believed to have come from the rape.
Holton was walking in the neighborhood the same morning. He said he was en route to a nearby bakery to borrow a friend’s car. Miller said the victim told police she couldn’t identify her attackers, but her son said Holton wasn’t one of the assailants. The boy later testified for the defense at Holton’s trial.
The case went cold until a year later when a prison informant came forward and implicated Holton and Tim Smith, now 40. The victim picked Holton out of a lineup. The record’s unclear if she picked Smith, too, but both were charged with sexual battery, kidnapping, armed robbery, burglary and aggravated assault.
Just before trial, Smith accepted a deal to testify against Holton. He pleaded guilty to burglary and got a time-served sentence, court records show. Holton, who had previously been to prison for burglary and grand theft, was convicted of all counts and sentenced to life.
In 2005 the blanket was tested by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Its tests yielded no results, so a second agreement was reached in 2007 to test the blanket at a private lab, paid for by the Innocence Project of Florida. Those tests showed the three sperm samples on the blanket all appeared to originate from the same man and definitively excluded Holton as the donor.
Miller said it took a year to file the motion to vacate because the Innocence Project did further investigation into the case to make sure it was on solid legal ground. The project has been involved with seven of the 10 other Florida prisoners freed because of DNA since 2003. They include Chad Heins, who had been incarcerated since 1994 for murdering his sister-in-law in Mayport until new tests sprung him in 2007.
Mizrahi said he will now conduct his own investigation that will include finding and interviewing Smith and comparing his DNA to the unknown samples. That could take some time, he said.
Miller described Holton as cautiously optimistic about the results.
“Most of these guys in this position, they realize we have a long way to go and it isn’t over until the judge says it’s over,” Miller said.
paul.pinkham@jacksonville.com,
(904) 359-4107
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