Former inmate wants compensation

Man spent 14 years wrongfully imprisoned

Seminole-Brevard State Attorney Phil Archer on Friday filed a motion challenging a former death-row inmate’s request to receive compensation under a Florida law that provides reparations for people who were wrongfully incarcerated.

Archer’s response comes three months after his office dropped all charges against Clemente Aguirre-Jarquin, 38, who had spent nearly 15 years behind bars for two gruesome Altamonte Springs slayings he has steadfastly denied committing.

Aguirre-Jarquin was convicted and sentenced to die in 2006 for the stabbing deaths of his nextdoor neighbors, Cheryl Williams and Carol Bareis, two years earlier. The Florida Supreme Court in 2016 dismissed the conviction and sentence after Aguirre-Jarquin’s lawyers uncovered new evidence. Archer’s office opted to prosecute him again, but abandoned the case in November, during jury selection for his new trial.

On Jan. 11, his lawyers filed a motion requesting Aguirre-Jarquin receive restitution under the Victims of Wrongful Incarceration Compensation Act, a 2008 law giving those who were wrongfully incarcerated $50,000 for each year they were imprisoned.

Aguirre-Jarquin, who spent 10 years on death row and four years in the Seminole County Jail while awaiting his two trials, would potentially be entitled to $700,000.

“The state of Florida is trying to deny a clearly innocent man the compensation that he is statutorily entitled to for spending 14 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit,” said Josh Dubin, one of Aguirre-Jarquin’s lawyers. “Their reasons for trying to do this are almost as absurd as their decision to re-prosecute him in the first place.”

Archer said there are two issues with Aguirre-Jarquin’s claim.

First, he said Aguirre-Jarquin’s lawyers filed the motion too late — more than two years past the deadline allowed under state law.

The 2008 law says compensation claims need to be filed “within 90 days after the order vacating a conviction and sentence becomes final.” The Florida Supreme Court announced it was vacating Aguirre-Jarquin’s conviction on Nov. 17, 2016. Almost immediately, the State Attorney’s Office said it would re-try him.

Dubin called Archer’s argument that Aguirre-Jarquin should have filed his claim while still facing murder charges “ludi-

crous.”

“They’re taking this crazy position that what Clemente Aguirre had to do was, as soon at the Supreme Court vacated the conviction, file his motion for compensation — even though the state of Florida immediately announced that they were going to reprosecute him,” he said. “I think the absurdity in that argument is pretty evident.”

Another reason Archer cited for wanting AguirreJarquin’s claim to be rejected: He said he still believes there is “substantial evidence” Aguirre-Jarquin committed the murders.

Aguirre-Jarquin claims he spent the night of June 16, 2004, drinking and partying, and returned to his Vagabond Way trailer shortly before dawn the next day. He says he walked next door to the trailer belonging to Samantha Williams — with whom he had a friendly relationship and often shared drinks — to search for beer.

He claims he opened the door to find Williams’ mother, Cheryl Williams, dead in a pool of blood. She had been stabbed more than 120 times. Bareis, Samantha Williams’ grandmother, was in another room, toppled out of her wheelchair. She’d been stabbed once in the back and once in the heart.

Aguirre-Jarquin — a Honduran immigrant who was in the United States without legal authorization — says he fled the trailer and didn’t call police because he feared deportation. He initially told police he knew nothing about what had happened next door, but later admitted to being inside the trailer. He was arrested later that day and eventually charged with two counts of murder. Two years later, he was convicted and sentenced to die.

The state Supreme Court overturned his conviction after Aguirre-Jarquin’s lawyers uncovered evidence that was not presented at his first trial, including bloodstains that had not previously been tested. Tests revealed that none of the blood belonged to Aguirre-Jarquin, but eight droplets belonged to Samantha Williams.

The lawyers also found several witnesses who said Samantha Williams had confessed to the killings multiple times. In its decision overturning AguirreJarquin’s conviction, the state’s high court called Aguirre-Jarquin “a scapegoat” for Williams.

Williams has not been charged in the killings. But prosecutors’ decision to drop the case against Aguirre-Jarquin came days after testimony that undermined her alibi for the night of June 16, 2004.

Archer said he didn’t drop the charges because of a lack of evidence against Aguirre-Jarquin, but because the credibility of Williams — a witness in Aguirre-Jarquin’s first trial who had been slated to testify against him again — was in question.

In response to AguirreJarquin’s petition, Archer and Assistant State Attorney Stewart Stone said Aguirre-Jarquin had changed his story several times from when he was arrested to when he stood trial. Archer also said the blood drops belonging to Samantha Williams were found in different rooms from the bodies.

Dubin said Archer’s motion is “unsupported by evidence.”

Aguirre-Jarquin’s petition will be reviewed by a circuit judge to decide whether he is eligible for a wrongful incarceration claim. An administrative law judge will make a final determination.

He currently lives in a Tampa community meant for people who were wrongfully incarcerated. He’s facing the possibility of deportation, but is seeking asylum to remain in the United States and awaiting a hearing in front of an immigration judge.

“Just as hard as we fought to make sure this case was dismissed, we’ll fight equally as hard to fight this motion and get Clemente Aguirre the compensation he’s due under the state of Florida,” Dubin said.