JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville man who spent 33 years in prison and was exonerated in 2022, before shooting a man a month later, received a 40-year prison sentence Friday afternoon.

In 2022, Edward Clayton Taylor was exonerated in a 1986 case where he was accused of raping a 4-year-old girl. Taylor had was freed on parole by Florida’s Parole Board in 2019, but in May 2022, he was exonerated of the crime by Duval County Judge London Kite after the now-adult victim came forward and said Taylor was not the assailant. 

Edward Taylor was found guilty of attempted second-degree murder in that shooting in December. On June 26, 2022, Jacksonville Sheriff’s officers were dispatched in response to a person shot. A police report said the victim was found on Odessa Street with a gunshot wound on his chest. He was taken to UF Health with serious injuries.

In surveillance camera video, a man could be seen approaching another man while pointing a gun, then the suspect left in a bronze colored vehicle. Police said they later found a matching the suspect description on Spearing Street removing items from the trunk of a bronze colored Hyundai Elantra riddled with bullet holes.

That man was later identified as Taylor, police said. He later pleaded not guilty. He was credited for 937 of time served.

He was celebrating the three-year anniversary of his freedom.

Kite, who oversaw the exoneration, met Taylor in court again and Taylor wrote her a letter expressing his gratitude and confessing to the crime. However, he argued he had shot the man in self defense.

“I feel strickened and ashamed to be back in front of you, after you extended me true justice by exoneration from that honorable thirty-seven year wrongful conviction!” he wrote. “I want you to know, understand and believe that I greatly appreciate the stupendous blessing you extended my family and me, as well as Duval’s judicial system, and others whom are wrongfully convicted of that degradation, as a whole.”

Taylor said he felt threatened on the night of the crime, partially because of his “instincts” developed from his time prison. He wrote that he felt entitled to a “stand your ground” defense, but his lawyer told him he did not qualify. 

While he admitted to the crime, he said he felt pity for the victim and apologized: “[He] was lying in front of my car. I felt bad for him! He was crying while laying there! I stooped down to him, and for what it’s worth, I apologized to him.” 

In his letter, Taylor wrote that he felt justified in shooting the victim, but wishes he had just never gone out that night. He was at the scene of the shooting because he was going out for a drink at a nearby business, he said.

On Friday, Kite said she believed Taylor when he said he would do it all over again if he could and that it was a sad day for her.

“Mr. Taylor I never wanted to see you like this,” Kite said.

At a brief hearing, Taylor’s 1986 conviction was vacated based on the fact that prosecutors at the time failed to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence. 

Kite’s decision removed his name from Florida’s sex offender registry.

The now-adult victim, who agreed to be identified, spoke on Taylor’s behalf two years ago, stating she was certain that Taylor was not her assailant. She said she misidentified Taylor in a process that involved since-repudiated identification practices, and intense pressure from police, prosecutors and other adults.

“I was four years old, unsure and scared when I identified Edward Taylor,” she wrote in a statement to the Florida Parole Commission, where she also testified twice in support of his release. “I felt very pressured by detectives and [others] to identify the perpetrator’s photo in the photo array that was shown to me.”

She said she believes that the flawed identification process was complicated by her age and the (now well-documented) pitfalls of cross-racial eyewitness identification. At the time, she told investigators the Black men in the photos, “all look the same to me. I can’t tell the difference between these men.”

Stephanie’s identification of Taylor was the only evidence against him.

Taylor has always maintained his innocence. In a statement written May 16, 1986, the day of his arrest, he wrote, “I, Edward Taylor, didn’t do this. I think this is absurd. I have a child, 4 years old, I could never do something like this. I am innocent. End of Statement.”

Taylor’s attorneys also pointed out a significant medical inconsistency: the child’s assault was discovered only because she contracted gonorrhea, which medical records show Taylor never had. His younger brother did have that venereal disease in 1986, however, something he admits. The brother was later arrested for sexually molesting four young girls in Brunswick in a similar fashion. (He was not prosecuted in that case, but is currently serving a life sentence for armed robbery).

Stephanie’s playmate, Jermaine, also identified his 18-year-old uncle as the man who “played house” with Stephanie on his bunkbed, though his testimony wasn’t allowed at trial.

In their motion to vacate Taylor’s conviction, his attorneys said that when interviewed by case investigators “to discuss the mountain of evidence suggesting he was the true perpetrator,” the brother didn’t deny he was responsible and stated that Taylor was innocent (“state fuc*ed up”), but also refused to accept the blame for the crime. According to investigators, he told them, “I can’t admit to it.”

Click here to read the case investigation report.