Black Man Gets $25M After 38 Years In Prison For Crime He Didn't Commit

A California man who spent 38 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit has been awarded $25 million, marking the largest wrongful conviction settlement in state history, per the Associated Press.

The settlement, which was made public on Monday (September 22), ends a decades-long legal battle for Maurice Hastings, who was wrongfully convicted in the 1983 sexual assault and murder of Roberta Wydemyer.

“No amount of money could ever restore the 38 years of my life that were stolen from me,” Hastings said in a statement. “But this settlement is a welcome end to a very long road, and I look forward to moving on with my life.”

In 1983, Wydermyer was found shot in the head with evidence of sexual assault. Hastings was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole, despite biological evidence collected at the time of the autopsy. He requested DNA testing in 2000, but the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office denied it.

Hastings submitted a formal claim of innocence to the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit in 2021. DNA testing later confirmed that the semen did not match Hastings, but instead matched Kenneth Packnett, a convicted felon who had committed a similar crime involving an armed kidnapping and sexual assault. Packnett had been arrested just weeks after Wydermyer’s death for an unrelated car theft, during which police found jewelry and a coin purse matching items belonging to Wydermyer, but he was never investigated for the murder. Packnett died in prison in 2020.

In 2022, Hastings’ conviction was vacated at the request of prosecutors and his attorneys. A judge declared him “factually innocent” in 2023, meaning the evidence conclusively proved he did not commit the crime.

Hastings filed a lawsuit accusing two Inglewood Police Department officers and a Los Angeles DA investigator of framing him.

“Police departments throughout California and across the country should take notice that there is a steep price to pay for allowing such egregious misconduct on their watch,” Nick Brustin, one of Hastings’ attorneys, said in a statement.

Following his release, Hastings lives in Southern California and is active in his church, his lawyers said.

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