California man gets $25M for wrongful conviction after 38 years in prison

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An innocent man who spent 38 years behind bars in California was awarded $25 million in what his lawyers called the largest wrongful conviction settlement in state history.

The settlement was reached in August, according to court documents made public on Monday.

Maurice Hastings, 72, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole in connection with the 1983 sexual assault and murder of Roberta Wydermyer, who was killed by a single gunshot to the head.

The lawsuit accused two Inglewood Police Department officers and the Los Angeles District Attorney investigator at the time of framing Hastings.

“No amount of money could ever restore the 38 years of my life that were stolen from me,” Hastings said in a statement. “But this settlement is a welcome end to a very long road, and I look forward to moving on with my life.”

Lawyers for the defendants and a spokesperson for the City of Inglewood did not respond to emailed requests for comment on Tuesday. Other details in the settlement were not made public.

The settlement comes after decades of legal battles where Hastings pled his innocence.

At the time of the victim’s autopsy, the coroner conducted a sexual assault examination and collected bodily fluids of the perpetrator, according to the district attorney’s office.

Hastings sought DNA testing of that evidence in 2000, but at that time, the DA’s office denied the request. Hastings submitted a claim of innocence to the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit in 2021, and DNA testing found that the semen was not his. In 2022, when he was 69, Hastings conviction was vacated at the request of prosecutors and his lawyers.

The DNA profile was put into a state database and matched to a person who was convicted of a separate armed kidnapping and forced copulation of a female victim who was placed in a vehicle’s trunk — harrowing details that closely resembled Wydermyer’s killing.

Law enforcement apprehended the suspect, Kenneth Packnett, less than three weeks after the 1983 murder in connection with an unrelated car theft, Hastings lawyers said. When Packnett was arrested, police found jewelry and a coin purse that matched the items Wydermyer had when she was murdered. Packnett wasn’t investigated for Wydermyer’s murder at the time.

Packnett died in 2020 in prison where he was serving a separate sentence, prosecutors said.

In 2023, a California judge ruled that Hastings was “factually innocent,” which means the evidence proves conclusively that Hastings did not commit the crime.

Hastings now lives in Southern California, where he is active in his church, his attorneys said.

“Police departments throughout California and across the country should take notice that there is a steep price to pay for allowing such egregious misconduct on their watch," Nick Brustin, an attorney for Hastings, said.

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Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Riddle reported from Montgomery, Alabama.