Washington Exonerees Receive Settlement

More than three years after

Alan Northrop

and

Larry Davis

were exonerated and released from prison in Washington, they will receive $5.25 million apiece from the settlement of a federal law suit that was reached with Clark County last Friday. According to Mark McCauley, the interim county administrator, the settlement must be paid within 30 days. The county will pay the total $10.5 million out of its own pocket because its insurer declined to pay any settlement or verdict in the case. An October 1, 2013 article by The Columbian reports that the settlement authorizes Northrop and Davis to sue the county’s insurer for an additional $12 million each.

 

Northrop and Davis each spent 17 years behind bars for a rape and burglary they did not commit before DNA evidence exonerated them in 2010.

 

“ ‘I wouldn’t want this to happen to anybody else,’ Davis, now 57, told KOIN 6 News. ‘I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, going through the prison system.’ ”

 

The

Innocence Project Northwest Clinic

took on their case, and after discovering DNA evidence not available at trial, conducted testing that cleared the two men of any wrongdoing. In his interview with KOIN 6 News, Davis said, “ ‘I was waiting for somebody to right the wrong, you know, the system. It didn’t deliver at all … They had to be held accountable. What can I say? You know, this can’t happen again to other people. It’s not right. They have to tighten up their system again and make sure that things are done properly and thoroughly.’ ”

 

Read the

full article

.