CT-REQ-2995 Advancing Racial Justice Pro Bono Report 01 TW V3 - Flipbook - Page 7
The map allows users to learn about the laws
of every state; contains information about
current and proposed legislation governing
police use of deadly force; and allows state-tostate comparisons of the authority granted to
police officers.
Innocence matters
A North Carolina jury rendered a $75 million
verdict in favor of our clients Henry McCollum
and Leon Brown, two Black men who were
wrongfully convicted, sentenced to death, and
spent 31 years in prison for a crime they did
not commit.
DNA evidence exonerated the half-brothers in
2014. Thanks to our clients’ courage and the
great work of our colleagues, the jury returned
a verdict totaling $75 million against the State
Bureau of Investigation agents who violated our
clients’ civil rights, resulting in their wrongful
incarceration. Earlier the same day, the county
sheriff and two of its officers settled, agreeing to
pay our clients an additional $9 million for their
part in this miscarriage of justice and to avoid
having the case against them go before a jury.
McCollum and Brown, both intellectually
disabled, were convicted for the 1983 rape and
murder of a young girl. McCollum was 19 and
Brown was 15 when they were interrogated and
were coerced into signing false confessions
written by law enforcement officers. They were
both sentenced to death. McCollum was on
death row for 31 years, becoming the longest
serving death row inmate in North Carolina.
Brown, who was 16 when he was convicted,
became the youngest person on death row. The
men were released in 2014 after DNA evidence
proved that a serial rapist and murderer — who
lived 40 feet from the crime scene — had killed
the 11-year-old.
The verdict is the largest in U.S. history in a
wrongful conviction case.
In a separate matter, we had the immense joy
of watching Curtis Flowers, an innocent man
who was sentenced to death and spent more
than two decades in prison for murders he
did not commit, take off his ankle monitor
and celebrate with friends and family after
prosecutors dismissed the charges against him
with prejudice.
We began representing Mr. Flowers in 2015 in
his post-conviction proceedings. Since the U.S.
Supreme Court reversed his conviction and
death sentence based on racial discrimination
in his jury selection, we worked with Mr. Flowers’
local trial attorney in Mississippi to prepare to
defend Curtis in a seventh trial, and ultimately
to persuade the newly elected Mississippi
Attorney General to dismiss the case.