$25.75 Million for Exonerated North Carolina Prisoner’s 44 Stolen Years
Justice delayed is justice denied. But for Ronnie Long, 68, who served over four decades in North Carolina prisons for a rape and burglary that he didn’t commit, the long wait to be proven innocent and released from prison came with a satisfyingly large price tag for those who wrongly convicted him: almost $25 million.
That was the amount of two settlements he reached, first with the state Bureau of Investigation (SBI) in March 2023, and then with the City of Concord on January 9, 2024, plus a payout from the state’s wrongful conviction fund. “Have we found justice in this case? Absolutely not,” said Jamie Lau, supervising attorney for the Duke Law Wrongful Convictions Clinic, who was Long’s criminal defense counsel. “No amount will ever compensate Ronnie for all that he lost, but this is a big step forward for him.”
Long, who is Black, was convicted in 1976 of raping a white woman; he was found guilty by an all-white jury and sentenced to life in prison at the age of 21. His prosecution was rife with errors. He did not match the victim’s initial description of her attacker, which changed over time. A police photo lineup was tainted. A hospital rape kit provided to the cops went missing. Exculpatory evidence, including hair samples and fingerprints, went undisclosed to Long’s defense attorney. Other potential Black suspects were excluded from the potential jury pool.
He pursued appeals in state and federal courts for decades, before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in an en banc decision on August 24, 2020, held that his due process rights had been violated at trial. The appellate court cited “a troubling and striking pattern of deliberate police suppression of material evidence,” including “lab test results demonstrating that [Long] was not linked to the crime scene in any way; a medical authorization demonstrating sperm taken from the victim was turned over to police and never seen again; and most recently, 43 latent fingerprints lifted from the scene, none of which matched [Long’s].”
The Fourth Circuit found that the state court’s denial of Long’s appeal subjected him “to an enhanced burden [of proof of his innocence], unreasonably applied Supreme Court law, and was objectively unreasonable.” Despite the majority’s finding of “extreme and continuous police misconduct,” including violations of the duty to disclose exculpatory evidence laid out in Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963)], six dissenting judges on the circuit bench would have denied Long’s habeas petition and left him in prison. See: Long v. Hooks, 972 F.3d 442 (4th Cir. 2020) (en banc).
On remand, a U.S. district court considered Long’s claim of actual innocence under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B) and overturned his conviction. He was released in August 2020. Four months later he received a pardon from then-Gov. Roy Cooper (D). In 2021, he was awarded $750,000 in compensation from the state (an amount capped by statute).
“You put me in the penitentiary for 44 years and during that time you destroy evidence, you lose evidence, tamper with the jury, you commit perjury and everything about the trial was a mockery,” Long fumed after receiving the paltry payment, vowing to keep fighting for justice.
And fight he did, filing lawsuits against the SBI and Concord city officials complicit in his wrongful conviction. Long’s suit against the SBI settled first, for $3 million, and the city of Concord then agreed to resolve his claims. In addition to a near-record-setting $22 million payout, the city issued an apology—a condition that Long insisted on as part of the settlement.
“Mr. Long suffered the extraordinary loss of his freedom and a substantial portion of his life because of this conviction,” the apology stated. “He wrongly served 44 years, 3 months and 17 days in prison for a crime he did not commit.”
In addition to Lau and the Duke Clinic, Long’s representation was provided by attorneys from Pfeiffer Rudolph in Charlotte and Olson Law PLLC in Raleigh. See: Long v. City of Concord, USDC (E.D.N.C.), Case No. 5:21-cv-00201.
Additional sources: NBC News, WCNC
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