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.
I wonder if anyone has done the math on how much labor he had to do in prison, and how much he would have been paid for that same labor outside of prison for 44 years at a regular job?
Assuming you get a job at 16, 44 years outside of jail and in the workforce would take you to 60*, most people’s retirement age.
16+44 is 60, not 70
I am shit at math.
In the US, it’s still not gonna be 25 million (on average, lower for POC sadly), but I don’t think any amount would fix the damage from 44 years in any prison.