Ronnie Long was convicted by an all-white jury in North Carolina on Oct. 1, 1976, after he was accused of raping a white woman in Concord.
A Black North Carolina man who spent 44 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of raping a prominent white woman has been awarded a historic $25 million settlement more than three years after he was exonerated.
Ronnie Long, 68, settled his civil lawsuit with the city of Concord, about 25 miles northeast of Charlotte, for $22 million, the city said in a news release Tuesday. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation had previously settled for $3 million, according to Duke Law School’s Wrongful Convictions Clinic.
The clinic, which represented Long, said the settlement is the second largest wrongful conviction settlement recorded.
“It’s, obviously, a celebratory day today knowing that Ronnie’s going to have his means met for the rest of his life with this settlement. It’s been a long road to get to this point so that’s a great outcome,” clinical professor Jamie Lau, Long’s criminal attorney, said in a phone interview Tuesday.
Dang. The US has the worst prison and justice system ever. No focus on rehabilitation, for only punishment.
Not punishment but laking you work for nothing. That is slavery.
Oh yeah, I head North Korean prisons are big on prisoner wellbeing and rehabilitation.
Hey bud? You’re comparing the US to a an extremely low-income totalitarian-dictatorship country with the worst human-rights record ever. They literally can’t feed their people or keep the lights on. Their per capita GDP is estimated at $654 vs $33,147 for South Korea (and $76,399 for the US).
And still we have the most people incarcerated worldwide (or 6th per capita). Not great…
Yeah? When talking about if it’s the worst in the world, I compare it to one of the worst in the world.
What do you want me to compare it to in that situation?
Still seems low. Imagine someone who said, “just sign here. If you make it through the next 44 years without leaving this cell, you’ll win $25 million.” Would anyone take that deal? A settlement is supposed to make a person “whole.”
No amount of money makes spending 44 years of your life in prison “whole”.
Especially in a American prision. Who even paus that? Is that tax payer money? If yes. This is beyond hilarious.
I envision this man like the guy Brooks from Shawshank Redemption that hung himself. Being in the prison system for 44 years changes you in ways I’m not sure money can fix. So it’s good that someone had to pay, but he’ll never have those years back, and is now 68 and “free” just as life is about to dial down for him.
Yeah he got fucked out of his life, there is virtually no amount of money that can fix this (trillions perhaps so you can at least play king of the world for a few years before you die).
And the woman who accused him is now going to jail for 44 years, right? Right?
Bruh. Quoted from the article:
"They said that the prosecution’s main piece of evidence was the victim’s identification of Long weeks after the attack and that it was “the product of a suggestive identification procedure arranged by the police to target Long.”
There were also numerous pieces of evidence from the scene, including suspect hair and 43 fingerprints, that could have helped exonerate him, according to his attorneys. The material, which they said did not belong to Long, was tested by investigators but not disclosed. The attorneys also accused Concord police officers of giving false testimony about the evidence at Long’s trial."
It sounds like she was led by the police, and all evidence pointing to the contrary was tossed out.
Seriously. If you’re raped you don’t think “finding my real rapist would be great, but what I would rather do is get some random guy sent to prison because I don’t like black people”
Bruh, it sounds like she was coerced and lead. She likely believed she that she had selected the correct person.
Plus, how is this not on the courts and jurors? They had actual evidence matching someone else that would have exonerated him, they purposefully ensured that he was judged by an all white jury, and they coerced/lead the victim.
Come on now guys, we all fucking know that police play head games with people to get BS confessions. This isn’t hard. They wanted a conviction, and they did whatever they could to get one, no matter whether it was the correct perpetrator or not.
Honestly it was a very racist trial. You really can’t blame one person.
It’s not so simple. There’s known cases where rape survivors are gaslit by cops into identifying the wrong person as the rapist.
I am not even 44 yet… this guy has been in prison 4 more years than I have been alive. That’s just insane to even try to comprehend.
I’m close in age to you, and it’s gut-wrenching to come to this realization. A large part of his ‘guilt’ was likely due to his skin tone. Absolutely sickening
THATS NOT ENOUGH
Honestly, I don’t think increasing the amount would make a difference. He won’t be able to buy back the years of life they took from him with it. He can use that 25M to spend the years he has left living as rich of a life as he wants, and by all means he deserves it.
I hope he doesn’t end up like those lottery winners who go broke within a year because everyone steals from them and then someone murders ☹️
How so? The original trial was wrong but you can’t fix that by making the victim crazy rich.
With $25 Million dollars you could buy a fleet of Yachts
