No compensation after 43 years of wrongful imprisonment
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">US man has been freed after being imprisoned for more than four decades over crimes he didn’t commit.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Kevin Strickland was convicted of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second degree murder in relation to a triple homicide in 1978.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The then 18-year-old was accused of killing Larry Ingram, 21, John Walker, 20, and Sherrie Black 22, at a home in Kansas City. He maintains that he was at home watching television at the time of the murders.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He received a 50-year life sentence with no parole as an eighteen-year-old, and has always maintained that he wasn’t involved.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I’m still in disbelief,” the 62-year-old </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://7news.com.au/sunrise/on-the-show/man-walks-free-after-spending-four-decades-behind-bars-for-crime-he-didnt-commit-c-4692536" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">said</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> moments after his release on Wednesday.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Thank you (to the judge) for reviewing all the no evidence against me to begin with. I really appreciate him taking his time to listen and understand what really happened in 1978 and how I was an easy mark and the police took advantage of me.”</span></p>
<p><img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7845887/kevin-strickland1.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/273081ddd4ee44d68dcb6e42f689fdbc" /></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Kevin Strickland was the first witness to testify at the hearing that secured his freedom. Image: KCTV5</span></em></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mr Strickland learned of the court’s decision to free him from prison while watching a soap opera, when the news scrolled across the television screen. He said fellow inmates began screaming.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I’m not necessarily angry. It’s a lot. I think I’ve created emotions that you all don’t know about just yet,” he told reporters while leaving the Western Missouri prison.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Joy, sorrow, fear. I am trying to figure out how to put them together.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">All of Mr Strickland’s charges were dismissed after his legal team presented evidence to exonerate him.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">During the proceedings, family members of the sole surviving witness, Cynthia Douglas, said she was pressured by police to name Strickland as one of the men she saw on the night of the murders.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cynthia passed away in 2015, but her mother and daughter appeared before the court to testify.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We were talking, she said, ‘Mother, I picked the wrong guy. The officer told me that was the guy,” </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.kctv5.com/news/local_news/kevin-strickland-first-to-testify-at-long-awaited-hearing/article_5ecc3214-40f1-11ec-b53b-1f9e37137c18.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">said</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Senoria Douglas, Cyntha’s mother.</span></p>
<p><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.25px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7845888/kevin-strickland2.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/46cf4c1eccd248cab801dbdad9f03e58" /></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cyntha Douglas’ mother, Seroria, spoke about how her daughter told her she ‘picked the wrong guy’. Image: KCTV5</span></em></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sherrie Jordan, Cynthia’s daughter, said: “She started saying (that) Kevin Strickland was the wrong guy. And she was trying to get him out, by going through the right procedures.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Judge James Welsh, a retired court of appeals judge, made the ruling to free Mr Strickland after a Jackson county prosecutor requested an evidentiary hearing, saying evidence used to convict him had since been recanted or disproven.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Under these unique circumstances, the Court’s confidence in Strickland’s convictions is so undermined that it cannot stand, and the judgement of conviction must be set aside,” Welsh </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/24/kevin-strickland-freed-42-years-wrongful-conviction" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">wrote</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> when ordering Mr Strickland’s immediate release.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Since securing his freedom, one of the first things Mr Strickland did was visit his mother’s grave.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“That was the first step. I didn’t have a chance to visit her in the last years … I revisited those tears that I did when they told me I was guilty of a crime I didn’t commit,” he told </span><em><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/11/24/kevin-strickland-prison-release-newday-vpx.cnn" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">CNN</span></a></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> on Wednesday.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">But, Mr Strickland will not receive any compensation from the State of Missouri for his time spent in prison, and a </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-kevin-strickland-after-wrongful-conviction" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">GoFundMe</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> set up to help him restart his life has received more than $400,000 in donations.</span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image: Midwest Innocence Project</span></em></p>