Skip navigation
Prison Legal News
× You've used up your 3 free articles for this month. Subscribe today.

Los Angeles County Pays $24 Million to Two Former Prisoners Wrongly Convicted as Teens of 1997 Murder

Loaded on May 1, 2025 by Matthew Clarke published in Prison Legal News May, 2025, page 48
Filed under: Informants, Settlements, Wrongful Conviction, False Exculpatory Statements. Location: California.

by Matt Clarke

On May 7, 2024, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a $24 million settlement for two California men who were wrongly convicted as teenagers of a 1997 murder, based on an unreliable jailhouse snitch’s testimony and falsified evidence.

On June 28, 1997, John Klene and ...

 

Full article and associated cases available to subscribers.

As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.

Subscribe today

Already a subscriber? Login

More from this issue:

  1. $1.2 Million in Settlements Reached in Suit Over Sacramento Jail Murder, by Douglas Ankney
  2. Multitudes Caged for Failure to Pay Child Support, Driving Mass Incarceration, by Matthew Clarke
  3. From the Editor, by Paul Wright
  4. Fifth Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity to Louisiana Officials Who Forced Prisoner to Work with Broken Surgical Screws in Ankle, by Anthony Accurso
  5. Florida’s “Pay to Stay” Law: A Second Sentence for Former Prisoners
  6. Study Finds Just 1% of Prisoner’s Eighth Amendment Claims Succeed
  7. Incarcerated Students Caught in Crosshairs of Trump War on Education Department
  8. Wisconsin Prisoner Inhaled His Own Teeth in Fatal Beatdown
  9. Disbarred Cincinnati Defense Attorney Who Defrauded Prisoner Clients Gets Three-Year Sentence
  10. South Carolina Conducts First U.S. Execution by Firing Squad in 15 Years
  11. Eleventh Circuit Revives Volunteer Pastor’s First Amendment Claim at Georgia Jail, by Douglas Ankney
  12. Trump Guts BOP Guard Union
  13. Los Angeles County Jails Record Almost One Death Every Nine Days
  14. South Carolina Jailer Gets 10 Years for Sexually Assaulting Nine Detainees and Co-Workers
  15. Florida Prisoner Returns to Custody After Overturned Conviction Reinstated
  16. Maryland Targets Highest-in-Nation Racial Incarceration Gap
  17. Idaho Warden Bought Execution Drugs on Roadside
  18. Connecticut Court Denies Access to Video of Prisoner’s Fatal Beat-Down by Guards
  19. Florida Prisoner Released to Die Settles With Centurion Over Ignored Prostate Cancer
  20. Wellpath Sanctioned for Discovery Violation in Suit Over Kentucky Prisoner’s Death, by Douglas Ankney
  21. Cruelty Is Now the Point for BOP
  22. New York Lifts Hiring Ban on Fired Striking Prison Guards, Announces Early Prisoner Releases
  23. Former Prisoner Appointed President’s Pardon “Czar”
  24. Oregon DOC Replaces Top Medical Staffers Amid Turmoil
  25. Rikers Island Staffers, Contractor and Detainee Sentenced for Smuggling
  26. Washington DOC On Hot Seat Over “Unexpected Fatalities,” Missed Autopsies
  27. Second Circuit Revives Connecticut Prisoner’s Challenge To Conditions In Virginia Lockup Where He Was Transferred, by Douglas Ankney
  28. 20 Charged in Nevada Prison Brawl That Left Three Dead
  29. Rikers Island Detainees Wait in “Black Hole” for Competency Treatment
  30. Pittsburgh Lockup Accounts for 43% of Pennsylvania Jail TASER Use, Suit Filed
  31. Mass Incarceration Weakens All Workers, by Brian Nam-Sonenstein, Eric Seligman
  32. Plans to Hold Migrants at Gitmo Hit Snag
  33. Third Circuit Denies Qualified Immunity to Pennsylvania DOC in Prisoner’s Challenge to 26 Years of Solitary Confinement
  34. Studies Link Incarceration with Lower Cancer Survival Rates—For Prisoner’s Partners, Too, by Anthony Accurso
  35. $2.95 Million Settlement for Untreated Pneumonia Death in Washington Jail
  36. Virginia Bribes Prisoners Not to Set Themselves On Fire
  37. Medical Copays Blamed for Reducing Prisoner Access to Healthcare
  38. New Jersey DOC Sued Twice for Turning “Blind Eye” to “Pervasive” Drug-Smuggling Blamed for Prisoner Deaths
  39. Missouri Repeals “Pay-to-Stay” Law
  40. New York Guards Indicted for Prisoner’s Murder
  41. $18,000 for New York Prisoner Who Alleged Guards Planted Shank in Cell
  42. Kansas Supreme Court Denies Compensation to Former Prisoner Whose Conviction Was Overturned
  43. Los Angeles County Pays $24 Million to Two Former Prisoners Wrongly Convicted as Teens of 1997 Murder, by Matthew Clarke
  44. Missouri Pays More Than $1.2 Million for Deputy Warden’s Sexual Harassment Claim Against Warden, by Douglas Ankney
  45. New Orleans Public Defender’s “Redeem Team” Says: “Re-entry Is Never Over”
  46. Texas Courts, Legislature at Odds over Executing Potentially Innocent Death Row Prisoner
  47. ACLU Sues BOP Over Failure to Implement First Step Act Release Credits, by Anthony Accurso
  48. Six Deaths in Eleven Months at Washington Jail
  49. New York Prisoner Awarded Almost $280,000 in Retaliation Claim Against Guards
  50. West Virginia Prison Chief Tapped to Helm BOP
  51. Crackdown On Pro-Palestinian Dissent Nabs New York Professor Who Found Link Between Cars and Incarceration
  52. Two California Prisoners Accused of Strangling Conjugal Visitors
  53. Wellpath Prepares Plan to Exit Bankruptcy
  54. Texas Prison Heat Declared Unconstitutional
  55. $3.4 Million Settlement for Minnesota Jail Death Called “Real-Life Nightmare”
  56. BOP Jettisons Transgender Offender Manual
  57. Kentucky Jail Sued for Detainee’s Death, Prisoner’s Stillborn Child
  58. Wait for Competency Restoration Averages 14 Months in Missouri Jails
  59. Jury Deadlocks at Trial of Last BOP Guard Accused at California “Rape Club”
  60. News in Brief

More from Matthew Clarke:

More from these topics: