By Victor Omondi
Mr. Darryl Howard was pronounced a free man last year after federal judges determined that he was sentenced for offenses he didn’t commit. The Black man’s conviction was vacated several years ago. He’s now receiving some lump sum after the jury awarded him a whopping $6 million in damages.
Mr. Howard was wrongfully convicted in 1995 for murdering Doris Washington, 29, and her daughter Nishonda, 13. As of 2016, the man had already served 23 years of his 80-year sentence. He was wrongfully charged with two counts of second-degree murder and arson.
Washington and her daughter were found dead in their apartment in North Carolina after having been sexually assaulted and brutally beaten. Their murderer(s) also set the apartment ablaze, Insider reports.
The case was vacated in 2016 after judges determined that there was some misconduct by the police and prosecutors involved in the case, according to the News Observer. It was in 2020 that North Carolina’s Gov. Roy Cooper pardoned Howard.
After his conviction was vacated, Howard filed a lawsuit against the police involved in the case, former Durham police detective Darrell Dowdy, the city, and other persons of interest.
However, it wasn’t until last week Wednesday that Mr. Howard was vindicated. The jury discovered that Dowdy had used false evidence against the Black man. According to Howard’s attorneys, the former police came up with false information and shared it among his false witnesses.
The police didn’t investigate the claims that Mr. Ho-ward was affiliated with a gang that peddled drugs, according to the attorneys.
Later, a DNA test deter-mined that a sperm found on Noshandi belonged to a young gang member. However, Dowdy tried to cover it up, according to the attorneys.
The 58-year-old Black man was demanding a total of $48 million in damages, but Dowdy’s attorney argued he doesn’t deserve to get more than $500,000.
“We have confidence in the investigation Detective Dowdy conducted,” said Dowdy’s attorney, according to Insider.
“I am happy about the verdict, but I am kind of upset about the damages,” Howard said, according to News & Observer.
