Wrongful convictions in the US

A

againstthegrain

Senior Member
Location
Sun Valley, ID
48+ years in prison

Glynn Simmons was sentenced to death at 22 yo. The penalty was later converted to life in prison. He is now 70 yo w stage 4 cancer and was released 7/23.

"“This Court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the offense for which Mr. Simmons was convicted, sentenced and imprisoned in the case at hand, including any lesser included offenses, was not committed by Mr. Simmons,” Palumbo stated in the order."



NYS and NYC paid over US$1 BILLION in wrongful conviction settlements


"The desperation to catch and convict at any cost fostered “a willingness to bend the rules,” Mr. Rudin said.

Emboldened detectives manufactured cases by manipulating witnesses, coercing confessions, using suggestive identification procedures and withholding exonerating evidence, he said. Locking up a certain percentage of innocent people was simply “collateral damage.”"


"For the exonerated, compensation cases are being settled for increasing amounts, often totaling well over $10 million. Over the past decade, the city has paid out about $500 million. And payouts for claims against New York State, another source of compensation, are among the country’s highest.

Taken together with recoveries from civil rights cases, the more than $1 billion paid out to those wrongly convicted in New York is the highest of any state in the country by far, according to Jeffrey Gutman, a law professor at George Washington University. A small industry of private lawyers has sprung up to help former prisoners get paid, and to get paid themselves.""
 

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NYT - "A man with developmental disabilities who spent more than 16 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder has reached a settlement of $11,725,000 with the city of Elkhart, Ind., his lawyers said on Friday.

“When law enforcement officers lie under oath, they ignore their publicly funded training, betray their oath of office and signal to the public at large that perjury is something not to be taken seriously,” the court wrote in its decision."

Mr. Conway resigned months later, after the Elkhart police chief sought to have him fired. In July 2021, the state filed a motion to dismiss the case. No other arrests have been made in the killing of Ms. Sailor."
 
I have seen several stories about men who were exonerated after spending decades in prison. That is one of the reasons I do not believe in the death penalty. For many, the best years of their lives were taken away from them. I always hope that these men will sue and get a bazillion dollars from those responsible for their wrongful incarceration.

The point about coercion brings to mind the case of the Central Park Five. Granted they may have been up to no good while in the park, but they were not guilty of rape and were eventually exonerated after a confession from the real rapist. The boys said they were coerced into confessing. Being youngsters, intimidating them probably wasn't hard to do.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
I have seen several stories about men who were exonerated after spending decades in prison. That is one of the reasons I do not believe in the death penalty. For many, the best years of their lives were taken away from them. I always hope that these men will sue and get a bazillion dollars from those responsible for their wrongful incarceration.

The point about coercion brings to mind the case of the Central Park Five. Granted they may have been up to no good while in the park, but they were not guilty of rape and were eventually exonerated after a confession from the real rapist. The boys said they were coerced into confessing. Being youngsters, intimidating them probably wasn't hard to do.
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I agree with you and am not pro death penalty for exactly this reason.
 
I'm with OneEyedDiva and chic why I'm not for the death penalty.

That poor man. I can't imagine how he endured. I'm not black but I'm nothing to look at and they have made studies that more attractive people get lesser sentences. I was also put in classes for slow learners which I am not. That sure isn't being imprisoned but I've got a little taste of this in life.

Bundy aside, people think he was good looking but to me he just looked evil. I don't know what I would have thought ever just seeing him.
 
NY Newsday- "Rodolfo Taylor, who steadfastly maintained his innocence, served nearly 26 years behind bars after being convicted in the 1980s for a string of Suffolk gas station robberies. In January 2022, those convictions were vacated by a judge after the Suffolk district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Bureau determined that police evidence pointing to other suspects was never turned over to Taylor's defense lawyer as required by law.

Now Taylor is getting a payback. On Dec. 14, 2023, the Suffolk County Legislature agreed to a $12.8 million settlement with Taylor to be paid by local taxpayers. Separately, Taylor also received another $1 million settlement with New York State based on the same claims.

While that payout is quite substantial the Suffolk settlement avoided an even greater financial risk — if Taylor’s $55 million federal lawsuit detailing police wrongdoing in his case had been successful. “There was no choice,” concluded Legis. Leslie Kennedy (R-Smithtown) of the county’s Ways and Means Committee after signing off on the settlement. “The evidence presented clearly put the county at fault.”"

"As Newsday reported last year, Long Island taxpayers overall have paid more than $165 million since 2000 stemming from lawsuits alleging law-enforcement wrongdoing. Taylor’s sum adds to that total, with other potential multimillion-dollar settlements creating further stress on the county budget."

NY Newsday editorial
 
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No amount of money would make it 'worth it' to wrongfully have to spend 20+ years in Prison. Most people who are incarcerated that long don't even know how to live on the outside after that much time. It's just heartbreaking to imagine what would go through an innocent prisoner's mind, just to survive another day inside a prison.:confused:
 
vintageMo said:
No amount of money would make it 'worth it' to wrongfully have to spend 20+ years in Prison. Most people who are incarcerated that long don't even know how to live on the outside after that much time. It's just heartbreaking to imagine what would go through an innocent prisoner's mind, just to survive another day inside a prison.:confused:
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There are two things I really hate. One is being told I did something I did not do. The other is being told I did not do something I know I did. Like you, I think putting anybody through that is heart wrenching. Plus, not only is adjusting hard, even after proven innocent, what are the chances of finding gainful, adequate employment expediently? There's probably still a rough road ahead after being released. Maybe no amount of money is worth it, but not being compensated for that kind of injustice is another crime IMO.
 
NYT- "A man who spent 44 years in prison after a jury in North Carolina wrongfully convicted him of raping a woman in 1976 has settled a lawsuit against state and local law enforcement officials for $25 million.

The settlement included a public apology to the man, Ronnie Long, 68, from the city of Concord, N.C., which acknowledged that “significant errors in judgment and willful misconduct” by previous city employees led to his wrongful conviction and imprisonment.
“We are deeply remorseful for the past wrongs that caused tremendous harm to Mr. Long, his family, friends and our community,” the Concord City Council said in a statement announcing the settlement on Tuesday.


“Mr. Long suffered the extraordinary loss of his freedom and a substantial portion of his life because of this conviction,” the statement said. “He wrongly served 44 years, 3 months and 17 days in prison for a crime he did not commit. While there are no measures to fully restore to Mr. Long and his family all that was taken from them, through this agreement we are doing everything in our power to right the past wrongs and take responsibility.”

Mr. Long’s lawyers said the Concord police had been under pressure to close the case in part because the victim’s late husband had been an executive at a local textile company, Cannon Mills, which had offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

Mr. Long, who is Black, has dark skin, and the victim, who was white, had previously described her attacker as a “yellow- or really light-skinned Black male,” Mr. Long’s lawyers said.

The police hid evidence from Mr. Long’s trial lawyers that would have undercut the courtroom identification, according to a lawsuit that Mr. Long filed against the city in 2021. That evidence included hair and more than 40 fingerprints found at the crime scene that did not match Mr. Long’s, the lawsuit said.

Before the trial, the Cabarrus County sheriff, the Concord police chief and some of his officers also personally vetted the jury rolls to weed out “undesirables,” according to Mr. Long’s lawsuit. As a result, there were only four Black people in the pool of 99 prospective jurors that Mr. Long’s trial team reviewed, the lawsuit said. None were seated.

Three members of the all-white jury worked for Cannon Mills, and a fourth was married to a Cannon Mills employee, Mr. Long’s lawsuit said.

Mr. Long “was targeted by police, the police manufactured a jury pool to ensure his conviction and, when the evidence indicated they had the wrong person, they just lied about it or made it disappear,” Mr. Lau said."

And another man went unpunished for rape. Lives were ruined. US$25 million settlement.
 
Those of us in the Counterculture, were frequently set up by planting drugs. The Easy Rider movie fiction was one of the only films that honestly depicted how authorities treated many young people, especially those with long hair until the late 1970s. Many police besides being racists, were totally brutal during that era. Those young people today that complain now have little understanding how bad it was and how much has changed.
 
againstthegrain said:
NYT- "A man who spent 44 years in prison after a jury in North Carolina wrongfully convicted him of raping a woman in 1976 has settled a lawsuit against state and local law enforcement officials for $25 million.

The settlement included a public apology to the man, Ronnie Long, 68, from the city of Concord, N.C., which acknowledged that “significant errors in judgment and willful misconduct” by previous city employees led to his wrongful conviction and imprisonment.
“We are deeply remorseful for the past wrongs that caused tremendous harm to Mr. Long, his family, friends and our community,” the Concord City Council said in a statement announcing the settlement on Tuesday.


“Mr. Long suffered the extraordinary loss of his freedom and a substantial portion of his life because of this conviction,” the statement said. “He wrongly served 44 years, 3 months and 17 days in prison for a crime he did not commit. While there are no measures to fully restore to Mr. Long and his family all that was taken from them, through this agreement we are doing everything in our power to right the past wrongs and take responsibility.”

Mr. Long’s lawyers said the Concord police had been under pressure to close the case in part because the victim’s late husband had been an executive at a local textile company, Cannon Mills, which had offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

Mr. Long, who is Black, has dark skin, and the victim, who was white, had previously described her attacker as a “yellow- or really light-skinned Black male,” Mr. Long’s lawyers said.

The police hid evidence from Mr. Long’s trial lawyers that would have undercut the courtroom identification, according to a lawsuit that Mr. Long filed against the city in 2021. That evidence included hair and more than 40 fingerprints found at the crime scene that did not match Mr. Long’s, the lawsuit said.

Before the trial, the Cabarrus County sheriff, the Concord police chief and some of his officers also personally vetted the jury rolls to weed out “undesirables,” according to Mr. Long’s lawsuit. As a result, there were only four Black people in the pool of 99 prospective jurors that Mr. Long’s trial team reviewed, the lawsuit said. None were seated.

Three members of the all-white jury worked for Cannon Mills, and a fourth was married to a Cannon Mills employee, Mr. Long’s lawsuit said.

Mr. Long “was targeted by police, the police manufactured a jury pool to ensure his conviction and, when the evidence indicated they had the wrong person, they just lied about it or made it disappear,” Mr. Lau said."

And another man went unpunished for rape. Lives were ruined. US$25 million settlement.
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I was going to post about this case yesterday. Let's put a face to the name. I'm very happy he got compensated but it should have been one million for every freaking year he spent wrongfully locked up!
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/10/us/ronnnie-long-wrongful-conviction-settlement/index.html
 
Indy Star - ""It is no coincidence that Andy received the largest wrongful conviction settlement in Indiana history," Slosar added. "Andy was among the most vulnerable in our society when he was coerced into a false confession and framed for a crime he did not commit.""

"Royer was convicted after confessing to the 2002 murder of Helen Sailor, who was found in her high-rise apartment in downtown Elkhart. His attorneys said an Elkhart detective forced the confession out of Royer after several hours of mostly unrecorded interrogation that exploited his mental disability. Royer who, according to his mother had the mental aptitude of a 12-year-old, confessed to killing Sailor after the interrogation that stretched over two days.

His co-defendant, Lana Canen, was convicted based partly on the testimony of a former Elkhart County Sheriff's Department deputy who said fingerprints found in the victim's apartment belonged to Canen. Canen was released in 2012 after an investigation found the prints did not belong to her."

Indy Star
 
NYT- "Harry Connick Sr., a long-serving district attorney in New Orleans whose office gained national notoriety for prosecutorial overreach that eventually resulted in many reversed convictions, died on Thursday at his home in New Orleans. He was 97.

His death was announced by his son, the singer Harry Connick Jr., in a statement.

The older Mr. Connick was a singer himself and became locally renowned for his nightclub performances in the French Quarter. But his national reputation as a district attorney was much darker, particularly after a 2011 dissent by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that blasted the Orleans Parish district attorney’s office, under his leadership, for singular incompetence and misconduct.

Justice Ginsburg found that Mr. Connick’s subordinates systematically hid evidence that could aid the defense, in violation of the Constitution. Mr. Connick, she said, had “created a tinderbox in Orleans Parish” in which violations of the defendant’s right to be given evidence were “nigh inevitable.”"

"According to the Innocence Project of New Orleans, which works to free the wrongfully convicted, 32 of those convicted during Mr. Connick’s time in office, from 1973 to 2003, were “factually innocent” and later exonerated. In 27 of those cases there was prosecutorial misconduct by Mr. Connick’s assistants, the group’s director, Jee Park, said in an email.

New Orleans under Mr. Connick had “the highest known wrongful conviction rate in the world,” Ms. Park said. “I do not know of any other former or current district attorney in the country with such a devastating record.”

Race was at the heart of it. An overwhelming majority of those wrongfully convicted by Mr. Connick’s office, 96 percent, were Black, according to the Innocence Project."
 
NYT - "Ronald Johnson, who had spent more than three decades behind bars, was freed on Monday after a Philadelphia judge vacated his sentence and reversed his conviction, officials said."

"Mr. Johnson, 61, had served 34 years after he was convicted of the 1990 murder of Joseph Goldsby. The conviction had been based “solely on the false testimony of two witnesses,” the nonprofit public interest law firm Phillips Black, which advises incarcerated individuals, said in a statement.

The police had hidden evidence showing that Mr. Johnson did not participate in the crime, Ms. Merrigan said. She pointed to two witnesses who had given statements to the police after being interviewed multiple times, in which they said Mr. Johnson wasn’t present, and “actually identified a different person.”

“The police then hid that evidence, and so when he went to trial, the jury heard from two witnesses who said that he was there. But he and his lawyers did not know that these witnesses had given many other statements,” she said."
 
Due to the hidden evidence, Mr. Johnson's defense lacked crucial information and the jury made its decision based on false witness testimonies.
This story highlights the tragic consequences of wrongful convictions and the importance of ensuring a fair and just legal system!
 
I am sure there are wrongful convictions, but in some regions there are laws and District Attorneys that are willing to ignore crime, or in many cases convey such trivial punishment that crime may be encouraged. Who are the ignored victims in those cases? The numerous victims, and those forced to change shopping and travel plans, lost jobs, cost to replace broken car windows, etc. Some examples …

San Francisco broken car window map …
The San Francisco Car Break-In Tracker

Then there are stores forced to close by intentionally weak shop lifting law, and countless jobs lost …
“Macy’s Union Square workers say rampant shoplifting to blame for closure”
Macy's Union Square workers blame rampant shoplifting for closure
 
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Many walk because lenient judges turn them loose to cause more mayhem.
It's a mighty awful world out there if it comes for you. Foe every innocent
falsly accused there are most likely a far higher score that move on to even
worse deeds. Sure they may get caught but will get lesser sentences more
often than not. They live well in prison. It's like an apartment now in many.
 
$13Million payout by SF in wrongful conviction

SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to pay $13.1 million to a man found to have been framed by city police in a murder case.

Jamal Trulove, an aspiring actor and hip-hop artist, spent more than eight years behind bars after being sentenced to life in prison in 2010 in connection with the 2007 slaying of a friend and neighbor of his at a city housing project.

The conviction was overturned in 2014 and Trulove was acquitted in a 2015 retrial.

Then a federal jury determined last year that two homicide detectives fabricated evidence, coerced a key eyewitness and withheld vital information that may have exonerated Trulove.

After Trulove filed a civil rights lawsuit against four police officers and the city, a federal jury awarded him $14.5 million. The city sought to appeal that award, but dropped its appeal after reaching this week’s deal on the lower payout.

The jury found that detectives showed an eyewitness only a photo of Trulove, and no one else, in a bid to identify a suspect, and evidence revealed that two homicide detectives were aware of another possible suspect but did not investigate that lead.

The four officers named in the civil lawsuit have retired without facing discipline in connection with the case, Reisman said.


SFPD at their best.
 
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