Ronnie Long was convicted by an all-white jury in North Carolina on Oct. 1, 1976, after he was accused of raping a white woman in Concord.
A Black North Carolina man who spent 44 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of raping a prominent white woman has been awarded a historic $25 million settlement more than three years after he was exonerated.
Ronnie Long, 68, settled his civil lawsuit with the city of Concord, about 25 miles northeast of Charlotte, for $22 million, the city said in a news release Tuesday. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation had previously settled for $3 million, according to Duke Law School’s Wrongful Convictions Clinic.
The clinic, which represented Long, said the settlement is the second largest wrongful conviction settlement recorded.
“It’s, obviously, a celebratory day today knowing that Ronnie’s going to have his means met for the rest of his life with this settlement. It’s been a long road to get to this point so that’s a great outcome,” clinical professor Jamie Lau, Long’s criminal attorney, said in a phone interview Tuesday.
Dang. The US has the worst prison and justice system ever. No focus on rehabilitation, for only punishment.
Not punishment but laking you work for nothing. That is slavery.
Oh yeah, I head North Korean prisons are big on prisoner wellbeing and rehabilitation.
Phew, well at least you’re better than North Korea.
Mate, I’m not American.
But hey let’s not point out of our first world biases and ignoring how bad it is for most of the worlds prison systems, because America is #1 in everything right?
Are you suggesting that US prisons should be judged by the standard of extremely poor countries and/or headfuck countries like North Korea?
Why?
I suggest not calling something the worst ever when we have far worse on this planet.
You can admit the American legal system is fucked without invalidating what a lot of the world goes through.
And you can point that out without suggesting that the US, which incarcerates a higher percentage of its population in the world, and uses incarceration as an extension of slavery, is somehow OK because it’s probably not as bad as North Korea. The appropriate comparator is Norway, not Eritrea, yaknow?
Quote where I said it was okay.
You’re arguing a strawman.
Whatever, not being American doesn’t change the point: the US being better than arguably the most totalitarian and authoritarian country on the planet isn’t exactly something to be extremely proud of.
Hey bud? You’re comparing the US to a an extremely low-income totalitarian-dictatorship country with the worst human-rights record ever. They literally can’t feed their people or keep the lights on. Their per capita GDP is estimated at $654 vs $33,147 for South Korea (and $76,399 for the US).
And still we have the most people incarcerated worldwide (or 6th per capita). Not great…
Yeah? When talking about if it’s the worst in the world, I compare it to one of the worst in the world.
What do you want me to compare it to in that situation?