DNA evidence frees Fla. man

TAMPA -- Alan Crotzer stepped into the warm sunlight outside the courthouse yesterday and raised his arms to the sky, celebrating his freedom after more than 24 years behind bars for crimes he didn't commit.

A judge freed Crotzer, 45, after DNA testing and other evidence convinced prosecutors he was not involved in the 1981 armed robbery and rapes that led to his 130-year prison sentence.

Crotzer was released more than three years after he wrote to the Innocence Project in New York, a legal clinic that seeks to exonerate inmates through DNA testing.

Crotzer's relatives and other courtroom spectators clapped and cheered as a bailiff removed the shackles from his wrists and ankles. Prosecutor Mike Sinacore congratulated him.

''Trying to fix an error in the system is just as important as trying to convict someone who is guilty," he said.

Crotzer and brothers Douglas James and Corlenzo James were convicted of robbing a Tampa family in 1981. Douglas James and Crotzer were also found guilty of kidnapping and raping a 38-year-old woman and her 12-year-old daughter at gunpoint.

A victim picked Crotzer out of a photo lineup. But Douglas James said Crotzer was not involved. He said he and his brother were the rapists and a childhood friend was their accomplice.