Man Receives N205m as compensation for bring wrongfully jailed for 23 years

 Written by Omoniyi Adedeji

  

A Black American, Curtis Flowers is set to be handsomely compensated after he was wrongfully imprisoned for murder, even though he always maintained his innocence.

 

The state of Mississippi has been ordered to pay $500,000 (N205m) in damages to Curtis for wrongfully arresting him.

He was arrested in January 1997 and released Dec 2019 after serving 23 years in prison. 

Circuit Judge George Mitchell ordered the state to pay Curtis $50,000 a year for 10 years as well as an additional $50,000 (N20,578,000) to cover legal expense. 

Doug Evans the District Attorney tried Curtis six times for the murder of four persons in a furniture store in 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.

In a fresh appeal, 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 (N535,028,000).