Posted on 02/14/2010 12:35:41 PM PST by JoeProBono
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio has agreed to give $1.1 million to a man who spent nearly 18 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit. Fifty-four-year-old Robert McClendon was released in August 2008 after he was cleared by DNA testing. McClendon says he's grateful for the settlement, but it doesn't make up for the time spent in prison. McClendon has been living in an apartment in Columbus with his son. He says he plans to buy a house, a car and invest the rest of the money.
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1.1 million for 18 years of that hell?
The State of Ohio is getting off easy on this one.
Modest goals for someone who had two decades ripped away from him unfairly. May God grant him a normal life from here on out.
I hope prison hasn’t ruined him for life. I hope he can find peace.
Hope he doesnt invest in stocks. I wonder if he knows the banks are paying .87 % on savings accounts now and CD’s are only 1.5%.
Hard to find a decent investment and a house in a decent neighborhood will take one quarter of his money .
That’s not nearly enough money.
If my math is correct, that works out to about $61,000 a year, and about $167 for each day McClendon spent in prison.
Not a whole heck of a lot compared to what he lost.
God bless and save him
I am afraid we have thouseands upon thousands in prison for crimes they did not commit, all because of aggressive and reckless prosecutors.
A million in cash, for a person who likely cannot find work is not all that much money. Hopefully, the State of Ohio is required to pay his lawyers and someone along to way has set him up with a good and honest financial planner.
But a million dollars for a lifetime of hell is nothing.
A million seems quite low when you consider everything..
One thing about the Headline though..
Should read
CITIZENS of Ohio giving 1.1M to man wrongly convicted of rape...
All the state gave him was grief and now using Public Money to attempt to appease him....
The state gave him more than grief. They gave him prison for something he didn’t do. The state convicts people. The state is responsible.
Just one more reason that I’ll never convict someone based just on the word of another. But in this case it looks like the state DNA tests were changed to fit the crime and it sounds like someone should be going to jail. This is what I really hate, you have prosecutors like Nifong or these idiots in this lab putting people away for life and what do they get? A big fat nothing in the way of punishment.
If she had accused a random guy she didn't know, it could possibly be considered an accidental misidentification.
If she falsely identified someone she knew well, then it could only have been false and perjured testimony.
I wonder what she will be charged with for this crime?
That's a joke, son. Women are never charged with a crime for sending a man to prison for decades by false testimony.
There are, of course, two types of innocence.
One is the guy who is innocent of a particular crime, but is a career criminal and has committed many others he got away with. While it doesn’t make it right, there is an undeniable element of poetic justice in the situation when he is sent away for something he didn’t do.
It is my understanding that many police, prosecutors and lab dudes see nothing wrong in “adjusting” evidence as needed to convict one of these types and clear a case. Particularly as they often “know” he did it, but just don’t have the evidence to convict. This probably happens less often now than in the past, as forensic evidence is harder to “fix” than eyewitness testimony.
The second type of innocence is that of the guy who has never committed any serious crime but is nevertheless convicted falsely.
I have no idea which group this guy falls into.
I would like to see those who have conspired to fix evidence be subjected to the same penalties they conspired to inflict on another. That was how the Law of Moses handled frameups.
The end result of these shenanigans is to taint all forensic evidence and get a lot of guilty guys released.
Ageed : A milion dollars isnt what it was when they locked him up.
Sounds like one of those eye-witness identification things which didn’t really work and, I hate to say it, but there are simply too many white people in this country who couldn’t tell two blacks apart if one were male and the other female or one alive and the other dead. That’s causes a lot of people being in prison for stuff they know absolutely nothing about.
A flaw in the state DNA testing system???? WTF
This poor guy gets put away for 18 years because the state screwed up a DNA test......................and he only gets 1.1 million for it?
Talk about getting screwed twice
Also makes you wonder how many other man are behind bars because of the flawed State DNA system ?
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