‘I thought about this day for so long. I thought about it when I was locked up for 17 years’
Two men who served nearly 17 years in jail for a shooting they were never involved in will now be paid $140 for every day they were incarcerated.
Dupree Glass, 36, and Juan Rayford, 37, were finally declared innocent Thursday, after being convicted of attempted murder in Los Angeles in 2004.
Under a new law, the state is required to pay them each $140 for every day they spent behind bars, or about $900,000.
The pair, who were teenagers when they were initially arrested over the crime that left two teens injured, were freed in 2020 following a retrial, in which the man who committed the crime, Chad Brandon McZeal confessed. The gang member is currently serving a life sentence for murder in an unrelated case.
The verdicts this week concluded a new trial that began in October after a state appeals court panel vacated their convictions.
After the judge ruled, Glass and Rayford embraced each other and their attorneys and outside court, Rayford, clutching his baby daughter, called it an “amazing” feeling to have their records finally wiped clean and their reputations restored, AP reported.
“I thought about this day for so long. I thought about it when I was locked up for 17 years. I thought about it for my last two years being free. I waited for this day because, you know, I knew I was innocent of every crime they said I committed,” he said according to the outlet.
The case is the first brought under a law that guarantees compensation for defendants who have their cases thrown out and also allows them to present evidence proving their innocence, defence attorneys said.
At the time of the shooting, Glass was 17 and Rayford 18. The pair were arrested after a shooting involving a group of teens in Lancaster, north of Los Angeles, that left two people injured by gunshots. The victims were reportedly not seriously hurt.
The pair were convicted of 11 counts of attempted murder and sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences.
“That trial never should have been brought in the first place,” defence attorney Annee Della Donna told The Associated Press.
“There was no evidence tying them to the shooting. Zero.”
The convictions of Glass and Rayford relied heavily on the testimony of just two witnesses who later recanted their stories.
It was later taken up by the Innocence Rights project at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.
Glass and Rayford now both work as drivers for Walmart, AP reported.
Rayford is with his high school sweetheart, who waited for him while he was in prison, and both men are now dad’s to baby girls.
According to AP, Glass said outside court: “I’m not big for words. But today is a wonderful day. For 20 years we’ve been living this nightmare. It’s finally over. We can go on with our lives.”
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