Three men who spent 36 years in prison for a murder they did not commit — they were wrongly arrested as teenagers by Baltimore police and wrongly convicted by a jury — will receive $48 million from the city after a vote Wednesday by the Baltimore City Board of Estimates.
The $48 million payout is the highest ever awarded in Maryland and one of the highest multi-plaintiff settlements nationally, according to Jeffrey S. Gutman, director of the Public Justice Advocacy Clinic at George Washington University Law School, who tracks wrongful-conviction settlements.
Why the police and prosecution and not the jury? It’s their duty to determine guilt, isn’t it?