Two former North Carolina prisoners were paid more than $12 million to settle lawsuits they brought against the state for wrongful convictions, according to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.
Floyd Brown and Greg Taylor, spent a total of 31 years in prison for crimes they did not commit, News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. reported.
Brown was confined in a psychiatric hospital for 14 years based on the false testimony by an agent of the State Bureau of Investigation. Brown received $7.85 million in compensation. (He also reached an undisclosed settlement with Anson County, which had investigated his case.)
Greg Taylor reached a settlement of $4.625 million for the wrongful conviction of a murder he did not commit. Taylor, who was convicted in 1993, spent 17 years in prison before a three-judge panel declared him innocent. The three-judge panel is an independent judicial commission focused on wrongful convictions. It is the first judicial panel in the United States charged with adjudicating wrongful convictions.
In addition to these two wrongful convictions, in 2009 North Carolina settled a case with Alan Gell, who spent nine years on death row for a murder he did not commit.
