Man Wrongfully Imprisoned For 27 Years Awarded $1M For Each Year He Was Imprisoned

Oct 14, 2019 by apost team

It is important to trust police officers and prosecutors to do their job with honor and respect for the rights of the accused, but sometimes these officials fall well short of the public’s perception. Too often one hears of draconian sentencing and shady tactics by law enforcement designed to secure convictions and punish rather than seek the truth. These types of activities by our public officials are not only unacceptable, but un-American. Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers and our third president, once said that it was better for a hundred guilty men to go free than one innocent man go to jail. In a new story, civil authorities who wrongfully convicted a man of murder were held to account after nearly three decades.

In 1987, Mark Schand was found guilty of the murder of a bystander in a nightclub in Springfield, Massachusetts. In interviews with reporters years later, Schand recalled the circumstances of his arrest. One day while Schand was walking his dog, two detectives slammed him against their police car and took him into custody. At first Schand thought it was a joke as he never killed anyone, but now knows that this was the first day of what he refers to as his decades-long kidnapping.

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Schand spent 27 years in prison before finally being freed with help from Centurion Ministries, an organization dedicated to helping free wrongfully convicted prisoners. In filings presented in 2013, Schand’s new lawyers proved that police and the district attorney hid evidence from Schand’s legal team in 1987. While Schand was free, he felt the need to be vindicated of his conviction. The district attorney’s original offer included a $450,000 settlement, minus attorney’s fees, but no apology. Schand wanted a more meaningful punishment for the system that maliciously took away 27 years of his life, and thus pursued the matter in federal court.

Originally intending to sue both the city of Springfield and four retired detectives that spearheaded his case, Elmer McMahon, Leonard Scammons, Raymond Muise, and Michael Reid, Schand’s case against the city was dismissed shortly after its filing. In later court hearings, Schand’s attorneys proved that the four detectives on the case manufactured evidence against him. After deliberating, jurors awarded Schand $27 million, $1 million for each year he spent in prison. Heather McDevitt, one of Schand’s lawyers, told reporters that while the legal team was pleased with the outcome, no amount of money could ever compensate Schand for the years he lost in prison.

What do you think of Schand’s case? How do you think police officers and district attorneys should be held accountable when they betray the public’s trust?