A US federal jury in Chicago has awarded $50 million in damages to Marcel Brown, a man who spent nearly 10 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder. This is the largest compensation awarded to a single wrongful-conviction plaintiff in US history.
Marcel Brown, 34, was arrested and sentenced to 35 years in prison for his alleged involvement in the 2008 murder of a 19-year-old man. In 2018, the case against Brown was dropped, and he was released after his lawyers presented evidence that his confession had been illegally obtained.
Brown’s lawyers, from the law firm Loevy & Loevy, revealed that Chicago police officers coerced his confession by keeping him in an interrogation room for over 30 hours, depriving him of food, denying his requests for a phone call, and preventing him from sleeping. The jury found that the police had fabricated evidence and coerced Brown’s statement.
Following a two-week trial, the jury awarded $10 million in compensatory damages for the period between his arrest and conviction, and an additional $40 million for the time he spent in prison and the aftermath.
“Justice was finally served for me and my family today,” Brown said outside the court.
