D.C. to pay Tennessee man $16.65 million over wrongful conviction
Donald Gates spent over 25 years in prison before being acquitted of sexual assault and murder in 2009.
Donald Eugene Gates who was exonerated of rape and murder after 27 years behind bars, stands outside a bus terminal in Phoenix on Dec. 15, 2009.
Matt York/AP/File
A man who spent 27 years behind bars for crimes he did not commit will receive $16.65 million from the District of Columbia as compensation for his wrongful imprisonment.
That鈥檚 about $617,000 for every year he spent in prison.
Donald Eugene Gates, now 64, was convicted in 1982 of the rape and first-degree murder of 21-year-old Georgetown University student Catherine Schilling.
Mr. Gates was exonerated in 2009 after DNA evidence revealed he was not connected to the crime, and a temporary janitor at the building where Schilling worked聽was behind the murder. The janitor died a year before he was identified.
In 2010, Gates鈥檚 lawyers filed a civil lawsuit against the city and police alleging police misconduct.
Gates, who now lives in聽Tennessee, has already received more than $1 million from the federal government for its role in his conviction. The settlement with the city brings his , the Associated Press reports.
On Wednesday, a federal jury found that two D.C.聽 from an informant and withheld evidence that led to Gates鈥檚 wrongful conviction for the 1981 rape and murder, according to The Washington Post,.
As he left the courtroom, Gates told reporters: 鈥淚t feels like the God of the King James Bible is real, and he answered my prayers. Justice is on the way to being fulfilled ... It鈥檚 one of the happiest days of my life.鈥�
In the United States, laws governing compensation for wrongfully convicted people vary from state to state. 聽
Only 聽of the wrongfully convicted are compensated, according to estimates by the Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals and reforming the criminal justice system.
While some states pay a fixed amount per year of imprisonment, at least 20 provide nothing.
Presently 20 states in the US have no聽, which means exonerees receive no money or services. The 30 states that do have one offer reparations that vary from a flat maximum of聽聽total in New Hampshire to聽聽per year spent wrongfully imprisoned in Texas. In Illinois, the wrongfully convicted need to apply for a certificate of innocence and re-prove their case to get financially compensated and expunge their records.
The Innocence Project reports that聽聽of wrongful convictions involve eyewitness misidentification. Other notable contributors to wrongful convictions include improper forensics, false confessions, and informants who provide false information.
In 2013, recorded a highest number of exonerations in the United States. The Registry recorded 87 known exonerations, a third of which were in cases which no crime in fact occurred.