North Carolina jury awards $75m to brothers wrongly convicted of 1983 murder
by The Associated Press from on (#5HW3G)
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
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.
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