North Carolina jury awards $75m to brothers wrongly convicted of 1983 murder

[Judi Lynn]

Henry McCollum and Leon Brown spent decades in jail before DNA evidence cleared them of the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl

The Associated Press
Sat 15 May 2021 20.02 EDT

A jury in a North Carolina federal civil rights case has awarded $75m to two, intellectually disabled half-brothers who spent decades behind bars after being wrongfully convicted in the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

The eight-person jury on Friday decided Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, who are both Black, should received $31m each in compensatory damages, $1m for every year spent in prison, the News & Observer reported. The jury also awarded them $13m in punitive damages.

“The first jury to hear all of the evidence – including the wrongly suppressed evidence – found Henry and Leon to be innocent, found them to have been demonstrably and excruciatingly wronged, and has done what the law can do to make it right at this late date,” Raleigh attorney Elliot Abrams said after the trial. Abrams was part of the brothers’ legal team.

. . .

Scott MacLatchie, the lead defence attorney for the SBI agents, attempted during his closing argument to cast doubt on the brothers’ innocence, the newspaper reported, despite the fact that they had received full pardons of innocence.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/16/north-carolina-jury-awards-75m-to-brothers-wrongly-convicted-of-1983




"Scott MacLatchie, the lead defence attorney for the SBI agents, attempted during his closing argument to cast doubt on the brothers’ innocence, the newspaper reported, despite the fact that they had received full pardons of innocence."

[bahboo]

1. piece of shit should have "asshole" stenciled on his fucking forehead....

[alittlelark]

2. I am a non-violent person by nature,

But I wanna Punch, taze, gas or immolate the smarmy look from that POS's face.

[OldBaldy1701E]

3. I have yet to see or hear a politician

or someone in any aspect of government admit to ever being wrong about anything. You get a lot of "We ran with what we had." or "We did not have all of the information.", or "We were trying to do what's right.". No, you were being a racist and a power-mad tyrant who really feels that you knew better than everyone else and therefore could not be wrong even when you were. I know that if I had ever done something this screwed up, I would be in massive hot water. But, someone in 'authority'? They can just walk away. Must be nice.

So, when are we going to stop the real criminals in this society? Oh right... never...

[exboyfil]

4. A Scalia special

He used this case to justify capital punishment in a death penalty appeal case.

Someone should take a dump on Scalia's grave in honor of this decision.

https://newrepublic.com/article/119319/scalia-death-penalty-defense-cited-murder-case-it-was-just-overturned


Justice Antonin Scalia would have none of it. But instead of refuting Blackmun, and vouchsafing the death penalty, by referring him to the allegations in Callins, he picked an even more brutal murder case—McCollum v. North Carolina—to make his point.

“[Death by lethal injection] looks even better next to some of the other cases currently before us which Justice Blackmun did not select as the vehicle for his announcement that the death penalty is always unconstitutional,” Scalia wrote. “For example, the case of the 11-year old girl raped by four men and then killed by stuffing her panties down her throat. How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection compared with that!”

Thanks to DNA evidence, mentally disabled half-brothers Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown, now 50 and 46 respectively, were just exonerated of that crime after 30 years in prison, which McCollum spent on death row.