Former auto worker that spent 45 years in prison for a murder crime he never committed has been awarded with $1.5 million by the US state of Michigan as a compensation for his wrongful conviction.
According to report, Richard Phillips was convicted in year 1972 and sentenced to life in prison “based on false witness ” who claimed that he committed the crime.
He was 27 years old when he begin his imprisonment penalty, now he is 73 years old.
He was set free in 2018 after the University of Michigan’s Innocence Clinic took up his case and declared him innocent, and prove that he is the longest imprisoned innocent man in America.
Phillips while been convicted still stand on his innocence saying, he rather died imprison as innocent than to agree to crime he never committed.
“I would rather die in prison than to admit to something that I didn’t do,” he told WDIV television last year.
To support himself while waiting for officials to decide restitution, Phillips sold paintings he had made in prison.
The wait ended Friday when Michigan’s top law enforcement official announced the $1.5 million award the largest of three restitution payments.
“Reentering society is profoundly difficult for wrongfully convicted individuals,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said.
“We have an obligation to provide compassionate compensation to these men for the harm they suffered.”
Other to be awarded include, paying more than $780,000 to Neal Redick, imprisoned nearly 16 years for sexual assault of a minor, before he was exonerated and released in 2007.
Also, former reserve police officer Raymond McCann will receive approximately $40,000, after he was exonerated of perjury in 2017.
(AFP)
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