Cheydrick Britt goes free after more than nine years of wrongful imprisonment

Cheydrick Britt, second from right, with his legal team (L-R) IPF Executive Director Seth Miller, local counsel Charles Murray, and IPF staff attorney Melissa Montle.

When the State Attorney’s Office for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit dropped all charges against Cheydrick Britt Nov. 20, he became the 14th Floridian freed as a result of DNA evidence through the work of the Innocence Project of Florida, which receives the majority of its funding from The Florida Bar Foundation through an Improvements in the Administration of Justice grant.

“We can’t do what we do (at all or with any chance at success) without the longtime and continued support of the Bar Foundation. So thank you, thank you, thank you,” wrote IPF Executive Director Seth Miller in sharing the news with The Florida Bar Foundation.

The Foundation’s 2012-13 grant to the Innocence Project of Florida was $294,516.

Britt’s charges were related to a 2002 sexual battery. His convictions and sentence for the sexual battery were vacated and he was released from prison Sept. 24, 2013, based on new DNA test results indicating his innocence of the sexual battery and lewd and lascivious molestation. Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Chet Tharpe signed the order vacating the convictions.

“I have been waiting for this moment for almost a decade. I always maintained my innocence and now the DNA testing has proven what I always knew to be true. Thank God for DNA, Britt said upon his release.