Man Wins Millions After Wrongful Conviction & Contracting Aids In Jail

Man Awarded Millions After Being Wrongfully Convicted & Contracting HIV From Prison Rape

A D.C. man who was wrongfully convicted and sent to prison for 22 years over a crime he didn’t commit is finally receiving compensation for all that he has gone though as a result.

via Washington Post

A D.C. Superior Court judge ordered the District government Friday to pay a record $9.2 million in damages to Kirk L. Odom, 52, who was wrongfully imprisoned for more than 22 years in the rape and robbery of a woman in her Capitol Hill apartment in 1981.

The amount, set by Judge Neal E. Kravitz, is the second — and largest — award in a case tried before a District judge under the District’s wrongful conviction law, which was approved in 1980. It also is one of the largest non-jury awards in an exoneration case in the United States.

“Mr. Odom spent more than twenty-two years of what should have been the prime of his adult life behind bars for a crime he did not commit,” Kravitz wrote in a 37-page opinion that recounted Odom’s “profound” physical and psychological suffering over the decades that included several prison rapes, his diagnosis with HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — suicide attempts, depression and family estrangement.

We’re certainly glad that this man received such a massive amount of compensation, but is there any true justice in cases like these where some has lost half of their life and had their health negatively affected for good??? Sure doesn’t seem like it.