2024 In Review
.jpg)
As we look back on 2024, the overarching themes have been patience, perseverance, and continuity. 2024
marked a great year at the Innocence Project of Florida with significant successes that brought freedom and
hope to four individuals and their families. IPF helped bring home Willie Williams, Jr., Leo Schofield, Jr.,
Randy Seal and Billy Holton.
Only a few days into 2024, IPF achieved the overturning of Willie Williams’ conviction and life sentence after 45
years of wrongful incarceration and 5 years of wrongful parole supervision. He was wrongfully convicted of a 1975
Jacksonville attempted murder based solely on a single unreliable eyewitness identification that we discovered
was induced by the junk science of hypnosis—a fact that was withheld from the defense for almost 50 years! Just
a few months later, in April, Leo Schofield was released on parole after 35 years of wrongful incarceration after he
was wrongfully convicted of a Polk County murder and sentenced to life in prison. Many of you know about Leo’s
case and the fight to fully exonerate him from the award-winning podcast Bone Valley, which highlighted the
multiple, detailed confessions of the true perpetrator. Randy Seal was wrongfully convicted of a Putnam County
arson murder and sentenced to life in prison before we were able to free him in August after 20 years of wrongful
incarceration based on credible evidence that the fire was not intentionally set and no crime actually occurred.
Also this summer, a Jacksonville judge overturned the wrongful sexual battery conviction and sentence of Billy
Holton, IPF’s longest-tenured client, after he spent 25 years wrongfully incarcerated and 10 years serving
wrongful sex offender probation. The State finally dropped those charges in October, ending Billy’s ordeal more
than 18 years after IPF began representing him. Together, these men spent 125 years wrongfully
incarcerated for crimes they did not commit.
​
Each of these cases represents someone who was ripped from society, separated from their family, and sentenced to die in prison. However, Willie, Leo, Randy, and Billy never lost hope, each day focusing on how they might be able resolve this mistake of the justice system despite the dire nature of their long-term wrongful incarceration. They each found IPF and put their trust in us to help turn their cases around, however long it mighttake. For each, with your support, we were able to rectify these miscarriages of justice and give each of them achance at a new life in freedom. These men never gave up hope and we at IPF never gave up on fighting for them.For some that fight lasted over 18 years, but we just kept at it and did the work. The positive result eventually came.
Willie Williams (right) with his wife Aminah Basir after his convictions were overturned (January 2024)
Leo Schofield plays guitar outside his home in Tampa (November 2024)
Willie Williams (left) with fellow IPF Client Neil Marion in Tampa (August 2024)
Willie Williams (right) with his wife Aminah Basir after his convictions were overturned (January 2024)
That kind of continuity in representation and long-term commitment to fighting for justice is only
possible because of supporters like you. The patience and fortitude of our clients and their families along with
your commitment every year to invest in IPF’s work, provides that vital continuity that our clients would otherwise
not receive. No matter where they are or however long it takes to right the injustice done to them, our clients know
that all of us, together, will continue to always have their back.
As we look forward, IPF is hyper-focused on our more than 40 clients who are still wrongfully incarcerated and
those we have not found yet. We continue to strategically grow the organization to expand our capacity to better
meet these challenges. This means hiring more lawyers, investigators, critical legal staff, and social workers to
find and free more innocent people and transform their lives for the better after release. To propel this growth, Dr.
Sarah H. Pappas, one IPF’s great supporters, has established the Dr. Sarah H. Pappas Fund for Innocence, a
substantial matching fund to increase IPF’s capacity to find and free innocent men and women in Florida’s
prisons.
Your past support was critical to our efforts to free Willie, Leo, Randy, and Billy and in our ongoing work on behalf
of our still-wrongfully-incarcerated clients. As we close out 2024, we have a goal to raise $150,000, and
every dollar raised as part of this year-end campaign will be fully matched by the Sarah H. Pappas Fund
for Innocence. This is a unique opportunity for you, our longtime supporters, to double your impact and
be the driving force in helping IPF reach more innocent people and reunite them with their families in
freedom in 2025.
IPF Client Clifford Williams passed away in the early morning hours of January 11, 2024, after a battle with cancer. He was 81 years old. Clifford was exonerated in March 2019 of a 1976 Jacksonville murder and attempted murder after more than 42 years of wrongful incarceration. Along with his nephew and co-defendant Nathan Myers, their exonerations were the first that resulted from a reinvestigation by a conviction integrity unit in Florida. Clifford was compensated by the State of Florida in 2020.
​
Clifford and his family were part of the Innocence Project of Florida (IPF) family. In addition to IPF playing a role in his exoneration, we were instrumental in achieving compensation for him and continually supported Clifford and his family during his reintegration back into free society over the last almost five years. He and his family members attended IPF events, and we are so grateful for the time that we got to spend with him.
​
All of us at IPF want to send our sincerest condolences to Clifford’s wife, Leatrice, his daughter, Tracy, his nephew and IPF client, Nathan Myers, and all of Clifford’s family. May Clifford’s memory be a blessing to all who knew him.