Man Awarded $9.2 Million After Being Wrongfully Convicted For 22 Years & Contracting HIV From Prison Rape

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Based largely on the strength of hairs found at the scene of a taxi driver’s murder in 1978 & an unrelated sexual assault in 1982, Washington teenagers Santae A. Tribble and Kirk L. Odom spent much of the next three decades in prison for the separate crimes. Kirk Odom photographed March 13, 2012 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alexandra Garcia/The Washington Post)

via Washington Post:
A D.C. Superior Court judge ordered the District government Friday to pay a record $9.2 million in damages to Kirk L. Odom, 52, who was wrongfully imprisoned for more than 22 years in the rape and robbery of a woman in her Capitol Hill apartment in 1981.

The amount, set by Judge Neal E. Kravitz, is the second — and largest — award in a case tried before a District judge under the District’s wrongful conviction law, which was approved in 1980. It also is one of the largest non-jury awards in an exoneration case in the United States.

“Mr. Odom spent more than twenty-two years of what should have been the prime of his adult life behind bars for a crime he did not commit,” Kravitz wrote in a 37-page opinion that recounted Odom’s “profound” physical and psychological suffering over the decades that included several prison rapes, his diagnosis with HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — suicide attempts, depression and family estrangement.

“It was readily apparent to the court at trial that Mr. Odom is only a shell of the young man he was at the time of his wrongful conviction, and only a shell of the grown man he would have become had he not been wrongly convicted and unjustly imprisoned,” Kravitz wrote.

In an interview , Odom, who was 18 at the time of the crime, said he welcomed word of the award from his attorneys, but added, “They can’t pay me enoughmoney to give me back the years that I’ve lost.”

Odom, who lives in Southeast Washington with his wife of nearly 10 years, whom he met at an HIV support group, said he is attempting to reconnect with his adult daughter, born weeks before his original trial. “I’m just kind of continuing to move on with my life. It’s hard, but we’re working on it together, which is a good thing,” he said.

Odom’s case is among what are expected to be several civil claims against the District by former prisoners exonerated through DNA evidence.

Not that there is any amount of money to fix this, but he should have gotten more. What a dreadfulness situation. I wonder if his family will no longer be estranged now that he has money. I wish him well.