Four men who were wrongfully convicted in a New Haven shooting have been awarded a multimillion-dollar settlement under the state’s compensation statute.
Carlos Ashe, Johnny Johnson, Darcus Henry, and Sean Adams were found guilty in a 1996 shooting that left one person dead and two injured.
The men were released after a judge dismissed the charges in 2013. They’d spent almost 17 years in prison, and have now been awarded $4.2 million each for the wrongful conviction.
Darcy McGraw, Director of the Connecticut Innocence Project, sees this settlement as a positive development. “We believe that wrongdoing on the part of the police and the prosecution is a contributing factor to wrongful conviction and often times goes completely unaddressed,” she said.
The conviction was based largely on the testimony of one key witness who had been offered leniency on unrelated charges in exchange for his testimony, but did not admit in court to making a deal.
