Broward County to Vacate Convictions for People Who Were Arrested for Buying Crack From Sheriff's Office

Broward County is vacating decades-old cases contingent on Broward County Sheriff’s Office arrests of people who bought crack cocaine produced by the police.

CBS12 reports that the Sheriff’s Office manufactured its own crack cocaine, which deputies then sold to people so they could subsequently arrest those people. It was a practice the police employed for three years, which the Florida Supreme Court called “outrageous” in 1993 when it determined that reverse-stings didn’t allow for a person’s right to due process. However, it seems that many of those arrests and convictions haven’t been removed from people’s criminal records.

On Friday, the State Attorney for Broward County Harold Pryor said, “It is never too late to do the right thing.” His office is now looking to vacate or remove the judgements and sentences for those who were arrested in connection with these reverse-stings.

“These records may be a dim memory or an unfortunate part of history to many, but they have had a long-lasting and severe impact on the lives of the people who were arrested—as well as their families and the wider community,” Pryor said.

Having such a case on one's record could impact a person's ability to find a job or a home, and can still show up on background checks. It’s believed that there may be as many as 2,600 cases that haven’t yet been vacated.

According to the outlet, the state held on to many of the records even though the statutory requirement had expired, and some were going to be destroyed.

Pryor wrote a letter to Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony to let him know the state’s plans: “These matters were well before our tenures. However, I am of the opinion that the State has an ethical duty and obligation to correct this injustice before destruction [of old records] is initiated.”