TALHASSEE – Robert Duboise spent 37 years behind the bar, including three years in the death row, before his exoneration in 2020 rape and murder of a woman in Tampa.
Duboise was 18 years old when he was arrested, and was 55 when he was released from prison after the Hillsboro County State Attorney’s Office concluded it would invalidate a 1983 crime conviction.
In 2008, the Florida Legislature passed a law defended by the late lawyer and Florida State University President Sandy Darberte. Under the law, Exxon held by the court that the conviction of them entitled to be $50,000 for the year they served in prison. The maximum reward is $2 million.
Duboise, who maintained his innocence through his decades of trials, was not eligible for compensation as a 17-year-old, as he was convicted of three unrelated felonies. He and his free lawyers and lobbyists spent three years trying to persuade Florida lawmakers to approve a special kind of bill known as the “claim” bill. The lawmakers signed off in 2023.
Florida is the only state with an illegal incarceration compensation program that excludes people with previous felony. According to the National Exemption Registration, 91 Florida people have been exonerated since 1989. Five of these exonaires are covered.
Rep. Traci Koster of R-Tampa is one of the lawmakers who tried to change the law to abolish what is known as the “clean hand” provision.
Coster, which sponsors such a bill for a legislative meeting that begins Tuesday, pointed to DuBois’ plight as a driving force behind its interest in making change.
“One of the first meetings I filmed as an elected official was one of these mistakenly incarcerated people. Coster, the first elected lawyer in 2020, said Coster, the first elected lawyer in 2020, before the Criminal Justice Subcommittee unanimously approved the proposal (HB 59) last week.
Coster told a House panel that changing the law would help 18 exonars “people who have been denied compensation due to our overly restricted barriers.”
“This is a total of about 300 years of illegal imprisonment. Six of these exons have waited more than 10 years to get justice,” she said, adding that the total cost of compensation for all men would be around $15 million. “And as I said over the past four years I introduced this bill, when we as a nation make it wrong, jail someone and take away their freedom, we need to get it right.”
The bill also covers the deadline for 90 days to two years for Exonelly to seek compensation from the state and for those who have received compensation to repay the state if a civil settlement is received, set a process.
Duboise, 60, advocates for change.
The current law “is basically targeting people who have been convicted of something in their life,” he told Florida news services in an interview.
Exonelly’s history “should be irrelevant if you know that you found the wrong person guilty,” Duboise said.
Like other ex-people, exonerated people face countless challenges after being released from prison. Released amid the coronavirus pandemic, DuBois said opening a bank account due to lack of identification is a challenge for him.
“I didn’t know how to use the phone or something,” he said.
Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project in Florida, helped overturn DuBois’ conviction and the organization that defended the 2008 law told News Service that state payments would help ease the transition to the Exonnelly community.
“Our collective goal with all these men and women is to bring them to a stable place in every aspect of their lives. Everyone knows that financial stability is the key to everything else,” he said.
Sen. Jennifer Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican who sponsors the Senate version of the bill (SB 130), said it would “standardize” Exonair’s compensation and save it from having to pursue a bill from Congress. Special Magistrates must conduct a thorough investigation of the claims bill, which must pass the legislative process.
“These people are clearly behind eight balls. They don’t have the money. They don’t have the savings. They’ve lost the ability to save for retirement, have housing and build life support. So they’ve already started with a pretty big disadvantage,” lawyer Bradley told the news service.
Duboise’s bill bill took three years. He said the lawmaker who approved it was “very special to me.”
“I met all of them one day and we got to know each other. All of them were horrifying due to what happened to me. Their apology was important,” Duboise recalled. “They thought this could have happened to my child. It seemed real.”
Duboise said that money allowed him to help his sister, who has an autistic child and his mother – he had always planned to do it, but it took much longer to achieve.
“I’m just helping a lot of people, but I work every day, right?” said Duboise, maintenance manager at the Oldsmer country club. “I’ve been gone since I was 18. I’ve never learned how to enjoy it, so everything people want to do every day is I’m just working and doing my thing.”
Coster has confirmed that her proposal has not gained sufficient support in the past, but hopes Congress will approve it this year.
“All I’m doing is opening a door that’s barely breakable for these people, and trying to open a little wider, and since I was elected it has been my mission to pass this to the finish line,” she said.
