Two men who served nearly 17 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of attempted murder after a 2004 shooting were declared innocent Thursday by a California judge. Under a new law, the state is required to pay them each $140 for every day they spent behind bars, or about $900,000.
The verdicts for Dupree Glass and Juan Rayford concluded a new trial that began in October after a state appeals court panel vacated their convictions and they were freed in 2020. The proceedings included a dramatic confession by the actual shooter, Chad Brandon McZeal, a gang member who’s serving a life sentence for murder in an unrelated case, the defense team said.
Defense attorneys said the case was the first brought under a law that guarantees compensation for defendants who have their cases thrown out and also allows them to present evidence proving their innocence. "That trial never should have been brought in the first place," defense attorney Annee Della Donna told The Associated Press. "There was no evidence tying them to the shooting. Zero."
The teens, who had no criminal history, maintained from the beginning that they were not involved in the shooting. Their case was taken up by the Innocence Rights project at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge H. Clay Jacke’s decision was "a long, detailed ruling exonerating them for any and all crimes" related to the shooting, said defense attorney Eric Dubin.
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