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Alan Crotzer

State: Florida
Incident Date: 07/08/81
 Age at Arrest: 20
 Conviction Date: 1981
 Age when Exonerated: 45
 Exonerated Date: 01/23/06
 Time Served: 24.5 years
 Conviction: Sexual battery, kidnapping, aggravated assault, burglary, robbery, attempted robbery
 False Confession: No
 Implicated by Another Youth: No
Details

After losing more than twenty-four years of his life to an undeserved prison sentence, Alan Crotzer was released in 2002 when DNA evidence proved his innocence of a burglary and rape crime in Tampa, Florida. In July, 1981, a group of three men, one of whom was armed, robbed a home in Tampa, Florida, kidnapped two of the five occupants of the home, a twelve-year-old girl and a thirty-eight-year-old woman, and subsequently raped them in a car. The three other people who were in the house at the time managed to relay the license plate number of the attackers’ car to the police. The car was linked to Douglas James, who was borrowing the vehicle from its owner, who was in jail at the time. A photo including James and 20-year-old Crotzer was shown to the victims, who positively identified both two of the assailants. Corlenzo James, Douglas’ brother, was also identified by the victims. While the James brothers admitted to their involvement in the crime, Alan Crotzer continued to maintain his innocence. In court, lab analysts significantly misled the jury by testifying that the blood and hair samples found at the crime scene matched that of Crotzer; in reality, it was impossible to make these conclusions without DNA testing. In 2003, Crotzer obtained permission for the specimens to be re-analyzed using DNA testing. The results confidently excluded Alan Crotzer from the crime scene, and he was exonerated in January, 2006. Crotzer now works for the Innocence Project of Florida and is an Intervention Specialist at the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.



Post Exoneration: