A man who spent more than 16 years in prison in Florida on a wrongful conviction was shot and killed Monday by a sheriff's deputy in Georgia during a traffic stop, authorities and representatives said. Leonard Allen Cure, 53, was identified by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is reviewing the shooting, the AP reports. His death was confirmed to the South Florida Sun Sentinel by Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, who worked with Cure on his wrongful conviction case. "We're devastated by the news of his tragic death, and we don't have any further comment at this time," Miller told the newspaper.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said a Camden County deputy pulled over a driver along Interstate 95 near the Georgia-Florida line and the driver got out of the car at the deputy's request. He cooperated at first but became violent after he was told he was being arrested, a GBI news release said. The agency said preliminary information shows the deputy shocked the driver with a stun gun when he failed to obey commands, and the driver then began assaulting the deputy. The GBI said the deputy again tried using the stun gun and a baton to subdue him, then drew his gun and shot the driver when he continued to resist. The agency didn't say what prompted the deputy to pull over Cure's vehicle.
Cure was convicted of the 2003 armed robbery of a drug store in Florida's Dania Beach and sentenced to life in prison because he had previous convictions for robbery and other crimes. But the case had issues from the start and his conviction came from a second jury after the first one deadlocked. In 2020, the Broward State Attorney's Office new Conviction Review Unit asked a judge to release Cure from prison. Broward's conviction review team said it found "troubling" revelations that Cure had solid alibis that were previously disregarded and no physical evidence or solid witnesses to put him at the scene. An independent review panel of five local lawyers concurred with the findings. Cure was released that April after his sentenced was modified. That December, a judge vacated his conviction and sentence.
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