Alan Newton (pictured above), who spent the last 20 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, was awarded $18.6 million yesterday by a New York City federal jury.
He was convicted in 1985, according to a New York Post report, for rape but never gave up on proving his innocence. In 1994, he made his first request to test the victim's rape kit, but the New York Police Department couldn't find it.
It wasn't until 11 years later, in 2005, that officials located the evidence. They tested it the following year and it proved Newton never committed the crime.
So 12 of those 20 years were because of shoddy police work by the NYPD.
Newton filed suit in 2007 after years of legal wrangling with the city.
He now works for the City University of New York and says he'll use part of the money to pay for law school to help people in need in the justice system.
A spokeswoman for the city's law department said: "We are disappointed with the verdict and plan to appeal."
I'm not exactly sure what is disappointing. Is she disappointed that they couldn't keep an innocent man imprisoned for the rest of his life?
A 2002 examination by the Associated Press of 110 inmates whose convictions were overturned by DNA tests showed that even when men (or women) are released from prison after being exonerated for a crime they didn't commit, many of them still have problems re-entering society and often there isn't a happy ending.
