Entries tagged with “Henry McCollum”
Issues
May 17, 2021
North Carolina Jury Awards Death-Row Exonerees Henry McCollum and Leon Brown $75M for Their Wrongful Capital Convictions
In a case the late Justice Antonin Scalia touted as a justification for capital punishment, a North Carolina federal jury has awarded two intellectually disabled death-row exonerees $75 million for the police misconduct that sent them to death row. On May 14, 2021, half-brothers Henry McCollum (pictured, left) and Leon Brown (pictured, right) were each awarded $31 million, $1 million for each year they spent in prison, plus an additional $13 million in punitive damages. McCollum and Brown were…
Issues
Mar 29, 2021
North Carolina Bar Suspends License of Lawyer Who Defrauded Death-Row Exonerees
The North Carolina state bar has suspended the law license of a lawyer whose predatory representation of two intellectually disabled death-row exonerees defrauded them of hundreds of thousands of dollars. After a multi-day disciplinary hearing beginning March 15, 2021, a three-member panel of the North Carolina State Bar Disciplinary Hearing Commission suspended Patrick Megaro’s license to practice law in the state for five years. The panel also ordered Megaro to repay half-brothers Henry…
Issues
Aug 06, 2019
Appeals Court Clears Path for Death-Row Exonerees’ Lawsuit Against North Carolina Police Officers to Go to Trial
A federal appeals court has cleared the way for a civil lawsuit by two North Carolina death-row exonerees to advance to trial, rejecting a claim that police officers who allegedly violated their constitutional rights were immune from liability. On July 31, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a trial court ruling allowing Henry McCollum (pictured, left) and Leon Brown (pictured, right) to sue North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) agents Leroy Allen and…
Issues
Sep 17, 2018
Jurors in Henry McCollum Case Reflect on How They Sentenced an Innocent Man to Death
Four years after intellectually disabled brothers Henry McCollum and Leon Brown were exonerated of the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in North Carolina, jurors in McCollum’s case met with members of his defense team and reflected on how they sentenced an innocent man to death. In a September 6 op-ed in the Raleigh News & Observer, Kristin Collins — Associate Director of Public Information for North Carolina’s Center for Death Penalty Litigation and a former News & Observer…
Issues
Oct 25, 2017
Federal Court Rules to Protect the Interest of Incompetent North Carolina Death-Row Exoneree
A federal judge has voided a contract that had provided Orlando-based attorney Patrick Megaro hundreds of thousands of dollars of compensation at the expense of Henry McCollum (pictured left, with his brother Leon Brown), an intellectually disabled former death-row prisoner who was exonerated in 2014 after DNA testing by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission showed that he had not committed the brutal rape and murder of a young girl for which he had been wrongly convicted and…
Issues
Sep 05, 2017
Three Years Later, Report Explores Lessons From Two North Carolina Death-Penalty Exonerations
On the third anniversary of their groundbreaking exoneration, a new report by the Center for Death Penalty Litigation (CDPL) reviews in-depth the long path from wrongful convictions and death sentences to freedom traveled by former North Carolina death-row prisoners Henry McCollum and Leon Brown. By the time DNA evidence exonerated the brothers of the 1983 rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie, McCollum had spent 30 years on death row and Brown was serving a life sentence for Buie’s…
Issues
New Voices
,Jun 05, 2015
North Carolina Governor Formally Pardons Two Death Row Exonerees
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory granted pardons to Leon Brown (l.) and Henry McCollum (center, r.), allowing the two men to receive compensation for their wrongful convictions. Brown and McCollum are half-brothers who were convicted of the 1983 murder of an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to death. McCollum spent 30 years on death row before being exonerated by DNA evidence in 2014. Brown was released after 30 years in jail, eight of them on death row. At the time of their arrests, Brown was…
Issues
Oct 22, 2014
Former Death-Row Prisoners Freed In North Carolina
On September 2, 2014, Leon Brown (above) and Henry McCollum (below) were exonerated and released from prison in North Carolina. The two men, who are half brothers, had been convicted of the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to death in 1984. Brown was 15 at the time of the crime and McCollum was 19. Both men have intellectual disabilities and were interrogated under duress until they confessed to the crime. In 2010, Brown turned to the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry…