The Los Angeles City Council has agreed to pay out over $24 million (£16.5 million) to two men who spent decades in prison after wrongful murder convictions.
The council voted to pay $16.7 million (£11.5 million) to Kash Register (yes, that is his real name) after he served over 34 years for the shooting of a 78-year-old man in Los Angeles in 1979 reports Fox News.
In 2013, a judge overturned his conviction, saying police ignored the sisters of one eyewitness who said the woman was lying.
Register said in a statement:
[I] can’t get these 34 years back, but I hope my case can help make things better for others, through improving the way the police get identifications or other reforms.
A further $7.6 million (£5.2 million) to Bruce Lisker, who had filed an unrelated lawsuit challenging the investigation that helped send him to prison.
Lisker – who was 17 when his mother was killed in 1983 – said he showed up at her house, saw her on the floor through a window, broke in and tried to help her.
However police argued it was impossible to see her through the window, saying a bloody shoe print at the scene belonged to Lisker – he was imprisoned for over 26 years.
A Los Angeles Times investigation in 2005 said a new analysis of the shoe print showed it was not Lisker’s and he was eventually released in 2009.
In a statement Lisker said:
Finally, after more than 30 years of fighting to establish my innocence and to vindicate my rights, this painful chapter of my life has been brought to a close.
Register’s lawyer Nick Brustin said:
The City of Los Angeles really stepped up and did the right thing here.
They recognised Kash was the victim of a horrible injustice, and that if a jury saw the evidence of misconduct that led to his wrongful conviction, the award could easily have been several times greater.
Hopefully the pay out will help these two guys have some sort of life now they are free again, lucky for them they don’t live in Manitowoc County.
