Pardoned brothers would pay lawyers $400K under settlement [View all]
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal judge has rejected a deal allowing lawyers for two wrongfully imprisoned men to claim $400,000 of a $1 million settlement with investigators.
Judge Terrence Boyle issued a written order denying the settlement agreement for half brothers Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, men with low IQs who wrongly spent three decades behind bars for the killing of an 11-year-old girl. The settlement amount was revealed in newly unsealed documents after a coalition of news organizations asked that they be released.
Boyle's order from Wednesday also names a court-appointed advocate for McCollum because of the judge's concerns about his competency. The order notes that a settlement agreement can be filed again once the advocate gets involved. A lawyer previously arranged for Brown to have a similar advocate.
McCollum and Brown, who were released from prison in 2014 because of DNA evidence and later pardoned, had filed a civil lawsuit alleging local and state authorities violated their civil rights. They notified the court in April that they had reached a settlement with the town of Red Springs and two of its former investigators.
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