Broward clears dozens of drug convictions from the ’80s and ’90s. Here's why
Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor marched into a courtroom Friday to ask a judge to serve justice by clearing more than 40 convictions his office secured in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
One by one, Pryor named 42 defendants who had been caught up in sting operations by zealous investigators who manufactured crack cocaine and sold it, arresting the buyers at the end of the process. The Florida Supreme Court ruled in 1993 that those reverse-sting operations were illegal, but somehow the convictions remained on the records of an undetermined number of defendants.
As Pryor read off the names and case numbers, Broward Circuit Judge Andrew Siegel vacated their pleas, convictions and sentences. None of the affected defendants or their attorneys came to court to witness the official correction of the record. Some defendants have since passed away. Others may have had any number of reasons not to attend an event that would remind them of their past.