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Jury awards wrongfully convicted NC brothers $75 million in federal civil rights case
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/crime/article251411148.htmlHenry McCollum and Leon Brown spent nearly 31 years in prison for a brutal crime they did not commit — one they were convicted of on the basis of confessions that they insisted, for decades, had been coerced.
In a federal courtroom in Raleigh late Friday afternoon, after nearly five hours of deliberation, a jury delivered the half brothers a sense of long-awaited justice.
An eight-person jury awarded McCollum and Brown $31 million each in compensatory damages — $1 million for every year they spent in prison after they were wrongfully convicted, twice, of the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in Red Springs. McCollum and Brown, both intellectually-disabled with IQs in the 50s, were teenagers when they were charged after they signed confessions they insisted they didn’t understand.
The combined $62 million award in compensatory damages was part of an $84 million day for the brothers. The jury also awarded them $13 million in punitive damages after the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office, one of the defendants named in the civil suit, settled its part of the case earlier on Friday for $9 million.
In a federal courtroom in Raleigh late Friday afternoon, after nearly five hours of deliberation, a jury delivered the half brothers a sense of long-awaited justice.
An eight-person jury awarded McCollum and Brown $31 million each in compensatory damages — $1 million for every year they spent in prison after they were wrongfully convicted, twice, of the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in Red Springs. McCollum and Brown, both intellectually-disabled with IQs in the 50s, were teenagers when they were charged after they signed confessions they insisted they didn’t understand.
The combined $62 million award in compensatory damages was part of an $84 million day for the brothers. The jury also awarded them $13 million in punitive damages after the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office, one of the defendants named in the civil suit, settled its part of the case earlier on Friday for $9 million.