Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, two brothers from Red Springs, North Carolina who spent decades in prison for a crime they did not commit, have finally received a $75 million settlement more than 6 years after they were exonerated.<\/p>\n
A jury recently decided that the half-brothers should receive $1 million each for every year spent behind bars, which is equivalent to $31 million each in compensatory damages, as well as $13 million in punitive damages.<\/p>\n
The settlement ends the decades-long wait for justice to be fully served for the two. Elliot Abrams, one of their attorneys, said in a statement that \u201ca jury\u2026 has finally given Henry and Leon the ability to close this horrific chapter of their lives. They look forward to a brighter future surrounded by friends, family, and loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCollum and Brown filed a civil rights lawsuit against law enforcement in 2015, a year after they were exonerated. They were released from prison after DNA evidence pointed a different suspect, ultimately proving their innocence.<\/p>\n
The two has maintained their innocence ever since they were arrested in 1983 for a rape and murder of an 11-year old girl. McCollum, who was then 19-years old, and Brown, who was then 15-years old, reportedly had low IQs when they were questioned by police and coerced into confessing.<\/p>\n
They were both convicted and sentenced to death. Both spent 31 years in prison, with McCollum being North Carolina\u2019s longest-serving death row inmate as Brown\u2019s sentence was eventually reduced to life in prison.<\/p>\n
The recent $75 million settlement is considered significant because not all exonerees in the United States have been awarded compensation. The two expressed their relief since their release.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got my freedom,\u201d McCollum told\u00a0The News & Observer<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s still a lot of innocent people in prison today. And they don\u2019t deserve to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, two brothers from Red Springs, North Carolina who spent decades in prison for a crime they did not commit, have finally received a $75 million settlement more than 6 years after they were exonerated. A jury recently decided that the half-brothers should receive $1 million each for every year spent Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[860,56,133,1],"tags":[958,847],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2447,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions\/2447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}