(AURN News) — Maurice Hastings, who spent 38 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, has won a $25 million settlement — the largest wrongful conviction payout in California history, The Associated Press reported.
Hastings, now 72, was convicted in 1983 of sexual assault and murder.
He always maintained his innocence, but his requests for DNA testing were denied until 2021, when new evidence cleared him and pointed to another man, Kenneth Packnett, who had died in prison in 2020.
Hastings’ conviction was vacated in 2022, and in 2023 a judge declared him “factually innocent.”
Hastings said no amount of money can restore his lost decades, but the settlement marks the end of a long fight.
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