One thing stands between Dustin Shane Duty and decades in prison: a small group of law students working to exonerate him through the University of Miami School of Law's Innocence Clinic.

Duty has already spent about four years behind bars following a jury conviction and 20-year sentence for armed robbery. But his advocates at UM's pro bono law clinic and the Innocence Project of Florida say Duty is the one who's been robbed — of years of his life — by a system that incarcerated an innocent man.

“This is the sort of Kafkaesque nightmare that Mr. Duty found himself in,” said Innocence Clinic director and practitioner-in-residence Craig Trocino.

Jacksonville deputies arrested Duty in May 2013 as he walked near a neighborhood where a woman reported a knife-wielding man robbed her of $150. They say Duty matched the description of the suspect — a 5-foot-11 man in his mid-30s with light blue eyes and wearing a red Budweiser baseball cap, green hooded sweatshirt and khaki cargo shorts.

But Duty refutes this, claiming his boss had just dropped him off from his job as a painting contractor and, on his way home, he walked to a nearby store to buy a beer and pack of cigarettes. He'd just left the store when an officer jumped out of a patrol car, pointed a gun at him and placed him in handcuffs, according to the clinic's amended motion to vacate Duty's judgment and sentence.

Duty claimed that even though officers arrested him about 15 minutes after the attack, they found none of the victim's money. He urged them to check surveillance cameras  — there were none, according to court records  — or to call his employer, who he insisted would provide an alibi. Police called his boss, but only to confirm his employment, according to defense pleadings, and never sought to verify Duty's version of events.

Now, the Innocence Clinic wants Duval Circuit Court to reexamine Duty's defense, alleging former public defender Brian Crick failed to present the client's alibi.

“During the trial his boss was standing in the hallway, ready willing and able to testify,” Trocino said. “Mr. Duty's lawyer never called him.”

Crick did not respond to requests for comment by deadline, but a second claim in Duty's latest filing adds to allegations of ineffective assistance from the defense attorney.

Duty claims he had no shirt, but officers provided a T-shirt for him to wear.

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“This should have been vigorously challenged at trial. It was not,” Trocino said. ”They make him put on a shirt for the purposes of the identification. They put the victim in a car, drive the victim to where Mr. Duty was, and they say, 'Is that the guy?' And she says, 'Yes.' ”

EXHAUSTED REMEDIES

That response helped seal Duty's fate, beginning with his arrest and detention for 40 days before prosecutors charged him with armed robbery. It launched a chain of events that led to his conviction after a trial before Duval Circuit Judge Mark Hulsey III, an unsigned affirmance by Florida's First District Court of Appeal in November 2014, a pending motion for a reduced sentence and a pro se motion for post-conviction relief in September 2015.

It was around that time Duty reached out to UM students, whose work is becoming increasingly visible. The clinic gained exposure in January in a Miami New Times article questioning another conviction.

“We look through every part of the trial docket to investigate the case and see if there is something we can help with,” said Maya Frucht, a second-year law student working on Duty's case.

The Innocence Clinic works to overturn wrongful convictions as part of an international network of organizations. Law students spend multiple semesters culling heaps of letters, reading case files and working to identify legal mistakes that led to incarceration. They receive about 20 letters per week but only accept cases from prisoners who claim innocence, have at least 10 years left on their sentences and have exhausted all direct appellate remedies. Limited resources mean they can accept no death penalty cases.

The selection process often takes months, but Duty's appeal was an exception.

“Sometimes in a case like Mr. Duty's, we realize they were very wrong from the start,” Trocino said. “Those are the easy decisions.”