Man Released After Being Wrongfully Imprisoned for 23 Years, to Be Paid R7.6m
- Curtis Flowers spent 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit
- Circuit Judge George Mitchell ordered the state of Mississippi to pay Flowers R7.6 million in compensation
- The US Supreme Court ruled that Curtis was denied a fair trial when District Attorney Doug Evans refused to allow black jurors to participate
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Curtis Flowers was wrongfully arrested for murder, the maximum sentence the state law allowed. He had always maintained his innocence.
In addition, the state of Mississippi has been ordered to pay R7.6 million ($500 000) in damages to Curtis for wrongfully arresting him.
He was released in December 2019 after serving 23 years in prison after being arrested in January 1997.
Source: Facebook
Circuit Judge George Mitchell ordered the state to pay Curtis $50 000 (R760 000) a year for 10 years as well as an additional $50 000 (R760 000) to cover legal expenses.
District Attorney Doug Evans has tried Curtis six times for the murder of four people in a furniture store in a town called Winona near Jackson.
Two of the trials ended in hung juries and four resulted in convictions as well as the death sentence which was overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct.
His defence argues that there was insufficient physical evidence and the witness statements were too weak to convict.
The US Supreme court voted 7-2 that Flowers was denied a fair trial after Evans refused to allow black jurors to take part in the trial.
Critics have said that the compensation paid to flowers is too low, in Nevada, another man who was released after being wrongfully arrested and imprisoned for 18 years was paid $1.3 million (R19 800 000).
Earlier, Briefly.co.za reported that the story of John Bunn is one that wrenches at the heart-strings. He spent 27 years trying to prove his innocence in a murder crime charge.
When he was 14 years old, John was wrongfully charged for the murder of a corrections officer. He spent 17 years in prison and 10 years on parole, CNN reports.
In one of his court appearances, the man cried, saying:
"I’m an innocent man, your honour, I have always been an innocent man.”
In other news, Garry Webb has been compensated with £100,000 (R1.9 million) by the police for how he was mistakenly arrested and sent to prison.
According to Metro, he spent nights in the police cell in 2015 when the Scottish police mistook him for the suspect that he was not.
Garry said that the issue was not a case of mistaken identity as the police had all the shreds of evidence that proved he was not the person they were looking for.
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Source: Briefly News
