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LAST HURDLE CLEARED: Herb Smith, left, an attorney for Jerry Frank Townsend, holds a prison-release order for Judge Scott Silverman to sign during a hearing Friday. Townsend left Polk Correctional Institution in a gold Chrysler driven by relatives. Reopening cases creates rifts among police, prosecutors

Jerry Frank Townsend left Polk Correctional Institution shortly after midnight today in a gold Chrysler driven by relatives, heading toward freedom 22 years overdue.

As the car sped by reporters at the prison gate, a passenger shouted, ''He's out!'' Townsend was in the back seat, wearing a white baseball cap.

Reporters had stayed at the prison gate for hours to witness the release after a Miami-Dade judge signed the order calling for Townsend's release and characterizing him as ``the victim of an enormous tragedy.''

He had been released by the prison at 9:55 p.m. but waited several hours for an uncle who lives near Orlando to pick him up. Guards patted him on the back and wished him well as he waited.

The first to arrive at the prison were his mother, Mary Milner, and sister, Mary Jones, both of Broward County, who greeted him with hugs and tears, a prison official said.

Townsend, a man with the mental capacity of an 8-year-old and an IQ between 50 and 60, was not expected to grant any interviews. His attorneys said they expect to meet with him Monday.

Earlier Friday, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Scott Silverman ordered the Department of Corrections to free Townsend ``immediately,'' after lifting his convictions in two murders and a rape in Miami-Dade County more than two decades ago.

Silverman cited the lack of evidence in his order to drop the remaining convictions.

``Given the . . . deficiency in the state's evidence, a lack of trust in its evidence including the obtained confession, and in some cases what may very well be Mr. Townsend's outright innocence, it is abundantly clear that he is the victim of an enormous tragedy,'' Silverman said.

A Broward County judge already had cleared Townsend, 49, of four murder convictions there in the 1970s. DNA evidence exonerated him in two cases, and the remaining two convictions were vacated after Broward prosecutors determined they could not rely on Townsend's now-tainted confession.

The Broward sheriff, Ken Jenne, visited Townsend in prison last week to offer a face-to-face apology for wrongfully convicting him. Jenne vowed to write new procedures to govern all future dealings with mentally disabled suspects and witnesses in criminal investigations.

Thursday, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle announced that even though she believes Townsend is a rapist and murderer, the convictions have to be set aside since he only agreed to plead guilty because of the Broward convictions.

She said she cannot retry the cases because evidence has since been destroyed and the rape victim and witnesses cannot be found.

During Friday's court hearing, one of Townsend's defense lawyers, Miami-Dade Assistant Public Defender Herb Smith, called the case ``a failure of justice'' as he relayed a message to the court from his client, who remained in Polk Correctional Institution late Friday.

``Jerry Townsend asked me to tell the court he did not do these crimes,'' Smith said.

Townsend also asked him to thank the police detectives, prosecutors, lawyers and members of the media who helped free him, Smith said.

Minutes after the hearing, Townsend's defense lawyers placed a call to the prison. Smith, along with attorney Barbara Heyer, told Townsend he was officially cleared of all crimes and would be released from prison.

``His only question was, `When?''' Smith said. ``I had to tell him I wasn't sure.''

Corrections officials were conducting final checks on Townsend's record Friday before releasing him to his family.

Townsend, 49, was arrested in 1979 and charged with raping a pregnant woman in daylight on a downtown Miami street.

The victim and two witnesses, including a woman who said she hit him on the head with a bottle during the rape, pointed Townsend out to police a few blocks from the scene.

Detectives questioning him about the rape also asked him about murders in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Townsend told detectives in a rambling confession stretching over four days that he committed the crimes, including the Miami murders of Dorothy Gibson, 17, and Wanda Virga, 44.

Police later said he claimed to have committed 25 murders, in Florida and California. The two detectives who handled the case, James Boone and Bruce Roberson, are now both retired.

Roberson has declined to comment. Boone offered this remark, when interviewed at his home in Sevierville, Tenn.: ``We reviewed our case with the state attorney and that's the end of it.''

Defense attorneys contend Townsend was suggestible and told detectives what they wanted to hear to please them. They also said Townsend was unable to understand his Miranda Rights against self incrimination.

Defense attorney Heyer said Townsend's reaction to his release has been emotional. ``He's an adult but he has the mind of a child,'' she said. ``He wants to know when he'll be out.''

Herald staff writer William Yardley contributed to this report.