Tavares Hutchinson considered himself to be a free man long before the rest of the world did.
In prison, he said all anyone ever talks about is prison and what landed them there — but not Hutchinson.
"I could not afford to think prison, speak prison, and keep saying that I have a life sentence," Hutchinson said. "I had to speak freedom ... I was training my mind to say, 'I'm not in prison. I'm free.' "
And on Nov. 14, his mindset matched reality.
A Broward County court ruled that evidence proving Hutchinson's innocence in a 1999 armed robbery — a crime he has always said he didn't commit — was grounds for a resentencing.
After wrongfully spending 26 years behind bars in South Florida, Hutchinson, 49, stepped into the free world and finds himself working at a Christmas tree lot almost 500 miles away in Florida’s capital city — his first holiday season in three decades that wasn't spent inside a jail cell.
His newfound freedom is a wave of relief.
"I was full of anxiety, and that just took away all of the anxiety," he said. "It's just beautiful, man."
Traffic stop leads to wrongful arrest
Hutchinson was presumably going to die in prison.
He received a life sentence after being accused of robbing a man at gunpoint of his wedding ring and gold necklace. Police stopped Hutchinson as he was driving, and he expected them to do their search and let him go.
"Unfortunately, it didn't end like that," Hutchinson said.
Officers asked him about a robbery, to which he said he knew nothing about, and after seeing a gold chain in the front seat and Hutchinson supposedly looking like the suspect description provided by the victim, he was arrested.
Trial was a lonely experience for the then-22-year-old. No one believed he was innocent, which caused him at times to question whether he was guilty.
"I was in the streets," he said. "I have a record, and unconsciously, that's all you hear ... people just shoot this energy at you like you're nothing, and sometimes you just feel like that."
Denial of appeals also didn't help.
For 24 of the years he spent in prison, Hutchinson fought alone, advocating for himself in the courts and hoping anyone would see what he saw — his innocence.
'Readily apparent': Innocence Project steps in
After more than two decades of closed doors, Hutchinson saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
The Innocence Project of Florida took interest in his case in 2023 and was ultimately responsible for winning back his freedom.
"I reviewed his case, and it just seemed readily apparent this was a case of wrongful conviction," said Brandon Scheck, the legal director of the Innocence Project of Florida and attorney who represented Hutchinson.
Over the course of two years, Scheck pegged numerous errors in the evidence that incorrectly linked Hutchinson to the crime.
Some major discoveries that poked holes in Hutchinson's conviction were a forensic analysis that discovered the chain in Hutchinson's possession was a fake, Figaro-style gold chain while the stolen chain was supposedly a Gucci-style 14 karat gold chain, a suspect description that didn't match Hutchinson and the victim's updated testimony that he actually misidentified Hutchinson.
Prior to the organization stepping in, Hutchinson had submitted 10 appeals on his own behalf. By the time he had figured out how to write a successful one, Hutchinson said it was too late.
The court decided he had filed and lost too many times and barred him from submitting any more. The only way to get his case before the court was if a lawyer filed on his behalf, Scheck said.
But his trial and error was not in vain.
"I was actually getting other people free, but I couldn't get myself free," Hutchinson said.
Two fellow inmates were released after following Hutchinson's legal guidance.
"I always felt bad because I knew in my head that should be you," Scheck said. "You're still in prison, but you had the heart to help other people with the knowledge that you learned over time."
'Precious gem': The uphill battle of a Florida appeal
"Winning" is Hutchinson's motto.
The first time Scheck ever met him, he asked how Hutchinson was doing, and he responded with "winning."
"I've never heard a client tell me that they were winning until they've actually won," Scheck said.
Trying to spare someone from prison time they don't deserve is nerve-racking and never a guarantee until they're no longer in jumpsuits and shackles, and even then, there are still high stakes.
Evidence may prove Hutchinson's innocence, but the state chose to only offer him time-served rather than overruling the conviction. So for now, Hutchinson maintains his record as a convicted felon.
Scheck said they are working to get him completely exonerated and clear his name, but the fact that Hutchinson is out at all is something of a miracle.
"It's extremely rare in Florida," he said of the likelihood of someone being released that received a life sentence.
"Like a precious gem," Hutchinson chimed in.
The Innocence Project of Florida has helped 38 people who were wrongfully convicted get out of prison since 2004. Scheck has been personally responsible for 15 of those releases.
"It's definitely difficult because for every person like Tavares, we have five other clients who unfortunately aren't able to see the light of day," Scheck said. "So we definitely cherish the opportunities when we can have a client who's released and able to get their life back because there're a lot of people who are languishing in prison."
Life after prison
The first thing Hutchinson wanted to do as a free man was sleep in a soft bed.
He was released at midnight, and with limited options, they celebrated his first hours out of prison at a McDonald's drive through and a hotel with a soft bed.
The next day, he found himself in Tallahassee with a spot inside the Joseph House, a Catholic ministry and reentry home for former prisoners located in Florida's capital.
"I see now that here is like the best transition house probably in the world," Hutchinson said.
He hears horror stories of other people's transition homes that make it feel like they never left prison. "Nothing about this place makes me think of prison," he said.
In three weeks, with the help of the Joseph House, Hutchinson has secured a drivers license, bank account and job. He works at Christmas by King's tree lot as he waits to hopefully be enrolled in classes at Tallahassee State College that would start in January.
The re-entry process as a convicted felon is often a hard one with many roadblocks, but Hutchinson said in his experience with Joseph House, there haven't been any barriers to re-entry.
"That's what I like about this place," he said.
Hutchinson is originally from Broward County, but he said he's starting to fall in love with Tallahassee. It's peaceful and a great place for him to just think, away from the environment that once led him down rougher paths.
Scheck said Hutchinson will text him from time to time with one simple word: "winning."
"It's my way of knowing he's all good," Scheck said.
Even with the title of "convicted felon" following him around, Hutchinson still holds his head high. He figures, if the system couldn't strip him of his spirit then, it surely can't now.
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