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Virginia To Pay $1.9 Million To Wrongly Convicted Man
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
April 2, 2007

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA--Earl Washington, Jr's 24-year-long ordeal with Virginia's criminal justice system may finally have come to an end, with a settlement that calls for the state to pay him $1.9 million.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that last Thursday U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon signed an order to dismiss the $2.25 million award that a federal jury had ordered the state to pay Washington. Last May that jury found that a state police investigator fabricated evidence that led Washington, who has an intellectual disability, to confess to a rape and murder that he did not commit.

The settlement means that a verdict against the estate of Virginia State Police Special Agent Curtis Reese Wilmore, who died in 1994, would be dismissed, along with all other appeals. The state had paid for Wilmore's defense against Washington's lawsuit because Wilmore was a state employee when he interrogated Washington.

Washington, who will turn 47 next month, spent nearly 18 years in prison after being convicted in the 1982 rape and stabbing death of Rebecca Lynn Williams. He came within 9 days of execution in 1985 before an attorney volunteered to represent him and appeal his case.

DNA tests performed later on evidence gathered at the scene of the crime led one governor to commute Washington's death sentence to life in prison in 1994, and another governor to pardon him and order his release in 2001.

Those DNA tests pointed to Kenneth Maurice Tinsley, who is now awaiting trial for Williams' rape and murder, while serving a life sentence for an unrelated rape.

Washington's defense attorneys told the jury last year that during a May 22, 1983 interrogation, Wilmore manipulated Washington by feeding him details that only investigators and the murderer knew about, and asking him leading questions about the murder case that had gone unsolved for nearly a year.

Experts testified that Washington, who has been described as having mild mental retardation caused by an early childhood brain injury, was easily pressured into confessing to the crime.

The confession was the primary evidence used to convict Washington, even though it contained several inconsistencies. For example, Washington stated that Williams was black, that he stabbed her twice, and that they were alone when he killed her. The white woman was actually stabbed 38 times in front of two of her children.

Washington did not comment publicly after Thursday's settlement was announced. One of his attorneys, Barry Weinstein, reportedly said that Washington was "glad that the case is finally over with, and now he can get on with it."

Related:
"Ex-inmate settles case for $1.9 million" (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/07/red/0402a.htm
"Institute takes aim at innocents who were proved guilty in error" (Virginian-Pilot)
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=121748&ran=223906
"Earl Washington Jr." (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/laws/earlwashington.htm

Copyright © 2007 Inonit Publishing
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