TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the conviction and death sentence in a 1994 Broward County robbery-slaying, meaning the defendant will go free.

The justices ruled that evidence presented at the trial of Herman Lindsey was legally insufficient to support his conviction and that the case was totally based on circumstantial evidence.

"The state failed to produce any evidence in this case placing Lindsey at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder," the high court wrote in a unanimous opinion. "The evidence here is equally consistent with a reasonable hypothesis of innocence."

The 36-year-old Lindsey was charged with killing Joanne Mazollo in an April 1994 pawn shop robbery. The woman's body was found in the back room of the store where she worked.

Lindsey was charged with Mazollo's death in 2006, 12 year after the crime and 11 years after he had given a taped statement to police in which he implicated an acquaintance in Mazollo's death.

After his conviction, Lindsey sought to persuade jurors to spare him from the death penalty. The prosecutor should have cross-examined Lindsey about his childhood during that phase of the case, but instead asked him about the details of the crime.

Lindsey's lawyer objected, but he was overruled.

"The prosecution's comments were not only improper, but were also prejudicial and made with the apparent goal of inflaming the jury," Justice Peggy Quince wrote. "It cannot be concluded that these comments did not affect the jury's decision to impose the death penalty."

Lindsey, who has been on death row at Florida State Prison near Starke since June 2007, will remain in prison until the court orders the Department of Corrections to release him, DOC spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said.