New York will pay $ 12 million to the man who spent 25 years due to judicial error

New York will pay $ 12 million to the man who spent 25 years due to judicial error

In March 2016, the 51-year-old Andre Hatchett sued in new York, detectives and officers, stating that the error of the police investigation led to his imprisonment in a prison for 25 years for a crime he did not commit. The man insisted that he is innocent in the murder of 37-year-old woman in the Park Bedford Stuyvesant.

Prosecutors in Brooklyn annulled the verdict Hatchett, arguing that in 1991, the man could not physically beat the baton the victim and strangle her. At that time he was recovering from gunshot wounds to the neck and legs.

«I’m so happy to be free again. I lost my son, mother and father being here,» said Hatchett after the abolition of charges.

.@JRBlake meets #AndreHatchett who wrongly served 25 years in prison at #INConf2017. pic.twitter.com/8fVR97QyrX

— Innocence Project (@innocence) March 24, 2017

Seven months after Hatchett filed a lawsuit in Federal court in Brooklyn, it was decided to pay compensation in connection with the judicial error. The representative of the legal Department reported that they came to consensus and ultimately paid the amount of 12,25 million dollars.

«Decision making in the context of this accident was in the best interests of the city,» he said.

Emma Freudenberger, one of the lawyers, Hatchett, told the Daily News that her client «went through 25 years of terror and came out a brave, positive, ready to leave the past behind and to get the most out of life.» She noted that this decision will help her client realize his plans.

Freudenberger stressed the importance of this case that demonstrates how the city is trying to correct the error, and not to hush up the situation.

It became known that the parents of Hatchette, his brother and son died during the time spent wrongfully accused men behind bars.

Case Hatchette was one of reviewing one hundred cases of the last decades dealt with by the office of Brooklyn district attorney Kenneth Thompson. At the moment the Department staff denied 19 previous convictions and there are another 38.

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