Tallahassee, Florida —On Monday, August 12, 2024, Randy Seal was released from Union Correctional Institution after more than 20 years of wrongful incarceration. Seal was wrongfully convicted of a 2004 arson murder in Putnam County, Florida. Seth Miller and Brandon Scheck, attorneys with the Innocence Project of Florida (“IPF”), and Krista Dolan, a former IPF attorney and currently a senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, represented Seal in this case since 2017. Seal’s release comes after Seal and the State reached an agreement, in the middle of a five-day evidentiary hearing on his claim of wrongful conviction, in which the State agreed to vacate his conviction and natural life sentence and give Seal a discrete term of years sentence, in exchange for Seal entering a no contest plea where he was able to maintain his innocence.
 

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In 2004, Seal’s home burnt down and his girlfriend, who was inside, died in the fire. Seal was tried and convicted for arson murder based on scientific evidence produced by the Florida Fire Marshal Lab indicating that items from the fire showed the presence of gasoline and testimony from a jailhouse informant that Seal made incriminating statements. IPF’s investigation found that in 2016, the State lab lost its accreditation because the method it used to determine the presence of gasoline on items collected from fires, the precise method used in Seal’s case, was scientifically invalid. Additionally, IPF developed evidence that the State’s experts at trial were incorrect that the fire was intentionally set. IPF also interviewed the jailhouse informant who indicated that he fabricated his trial testimony. Based on this newly discovered evidence, IPF sought to overturn Seal’s conviction. During the course of the litigation, the State’s own postconviction experts even agreed that the items did not show the presence of gasoline and that the fire was intentionally set. Only after Seal’s attorneys began presenting this evidence at an evidentiary hearing in May 2023 and the State realizing the strength of the defense’s claims, did the State seek to resolve the case leading to Seal's release today. Randy Seal is the 34th individual that IPF has helped free from wrongful incarceration.
 

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“We are thrilled for Randy that he has finally been reunited with his family after more than 20 years in prison for an accidental fire—something that was not even a crime. This was just a single case where authorities used a scientifically invalid method to turn an unintentional fire into an arson. How many more innocent people have lost their liberty due to this scientific misconduct?” said former IPF attorney Krista Dolan, co-counsel for Randy Seal.


 

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“We are proud of Randy for taking control of his life and choosing freedom over all else. He was looking at years of appeals and a potential retrial. The risk remained of losing the case or being wrongfully convicted again and having his natural life sentence reinstated. Now, Randy will have the opportunity to rebuild his life in freedom and we look forward to supporting him as he begins his reintegration into free society,” said Seth Miller, IPF Executive Director and co-counsel for Randy Seal.
 

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