After 31 years behind bars, state gave innocent man $75. Now he has a million more
Lawrence McKinney gave up most of his 20s, then his 30s and 40s, in prison for crimes he didn’t commit.
Since he got out in 2009, he’s been waiting for compensation for the wrongful conviction in a rape and burglary case dating back to 1978, so tack on another stalemate of a decade. A lawyer told WZTV that the state gave McKinney just $75 upon his release from prison.
Now McKinney, 61, will be given Tennessee’s largest-ever award for wrongful imprisonment, $1 million, the legal maximum that can be paid to someone whose sentence has been overturned, according to the Tennessean.
“I would just not want to suggest that $1 million is satisfactory,” Secretary of State and board of claims member Tre Hargett told the newspaper before the unanimous vote to approve the payment.
Attorney fees will eat up $353,000 of the payment and will be dispersed initially. The remaining $647,000 will be paid to McKinney of a monthly annuity starting May 1.
McKinney will receive $3,350 every month, until he dies, and possibly longer. The annuity payments are guaranteed for 10 years, so if he passes away before then, the remainder of the payments will be made to his wife or estate, the Tennessean reported. If he lives longer than 10 years, he will continue to receive the payments, even if the total payout goes over the $1 million threshold.
“We thank the governor and we thank the board [of claims],” David Raybin, McKinney’s lawyer, told WTVF. “Highest amount ever paid, but then again, no one was ever [wrongly] incarcerated this long [in Tennessee].”
McKinney, who now resides in Lebanon, Tenn., according to the Wilson Post, did not attend the award hearing, about 30 miles west in Nashville.
The Tennessee state parole board twice recommended that, despite the new DNA evidence brought in 2009, McKinney should not be legally exonerated for the 1977 crime. In a 2017 op-ed in the Tennessean, former parole board member Patsy Bruce said the Shelby County court that overturned the conviction relied on “incomplete DNA evidence” that doesn’t “point to the innocence of either defendant” in the original case.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam granted the executive exoneration on Dec. 20, anyway, according to WREG.
“It was the best Christmas present I’ve ever had,” McKinney told the Post.
And it led to his million-dollar day Wednesday.
This story was originally published March 22, 2018 at 12:36 PM with the headline "After 31 years behind bars, state gave innocent man $75. Now he has a million more."