A man from Kansas spent more than two decades in jail for a double homicide he did not do.
He has now been awarded $1.5 million for the wrongful conviction.
Lamonte McIntyre was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of Doniel Quinn and Donald Ewing in 1994. He was only 17 at that time.
After 23 years behind bars, Lamonte, 41, was exonerated after Wyandotte County court reviewed his case in 2017.
In 2019, he filed a lawsuit against the state of Kansas under the mistaken-conviction statute, which permits people who have been wrongfully convicted and jailed to seek monetary damages from the state. This law had been passed only a year before.
Attorney General Derek Schmidt said: “We are committed to faithfully administering the state’s mistaken-conviction law as the legislature wrote it.
“In this case, our office worked diligently to obtain and review all available evidence, including evidence identified but not provided in the earlier judicial proceedings.
“We were ultimately able to resolve all issues, satisfy all of the statute’s requirements, and agree to this outcome so Mr. McIntyre can receive the benefits to which he is entitled by law because of his mistaken conviction.”
In addition to over $1,500,000, Lamonte was also granted permission to participate in a state health care benefits programs, a Certificate of Innocence, and counseling.
He also had tuition and attendance fees at a postsecondary educational institution waived for 130 credit hours.
Lamonte spoke about the devastating effect the wrongful conviction has had on his life.
“The state of Kansas took away 23 years of my life and has given me nothing to rebuild. The state took away my youth. It took away every birthday and Christmas with my family, and every hard time when they needed me and I couldn’t be there,” he said in his testimony.
“I missed joyful occasions and I missed sad ones too. I had nieces and nephews born while I was in custody who are young men and women now. I missed their entire childhoods. I was not able to comfort my mother when she buried her father, my beloved grandfather.”
Lamonte founded a non-profit organization Miracle of Innocence to help people who have been wrongfully convicted.
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Replaced!