US man gets $50mln after 10 years in prison on wrongful conviction

A U.S. jury has awarded $50 million in damages to Marcel Brown, a man who spent nearly a decade in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

This ruling, announced by his lawyers on Tuesday, marks the largest single award for a wrongful conviction in U.S. history.

The federal jury in Chicago ruled in favor of the 34-year-old Brown on Monday. He was originally arrested and sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted as an accomplice in the 2008 murder of a 19-year-old man.

However, the case against him was dismissed in 2018 after his legal team presented evidence that his confession had been obtained through illegal means.

According to the law firm Loevy & Loevy, Chicago police officers subjected Brown to over 30 hours of relentless interrogation, during which he was deprived of food, denied requests for a phone call, and prevented from sleeping.

Following a two-week trial, the jury unanimously agreed with Brown's defense team that police had coerced his confession and fabricated evidence against him. The jury awarded Brown $10 million in compensatory damages for the period between his arrest and conviction, as well as $40 million for his time spent in prison and its aftermath.

"Justice was finally served for me and my family today," Brown stated outside the courtroom, as reported by his lawyers.