In a rare decision, the L.A. District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday that it has found a man who spent 38 years in prison for murder factually innocent. The finding follows a judge’s October decision to release Maurice Hastings after DNA testing pointed to another man as the killer.
The judge is expected to accept the DA’s finding during a hearing scheduled for Wednesday. A finding of factual innocence is a determination that someone did not commit a crime and can never be prosecuted again for it.
“It’s really important to me, ” Hastings, 69, told LAist. “I’m able to let everyone know I was innocent of this crime,” he said, adding, “I can just move forward.”
In 1983, a jury found Hastings guilty of killing an Inglewood woman and two attempted murders. The verdict came after another jury had found him not guilty. Prosecutors sought the death penalty but failed. Hastings was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“The DA offices don’t concede on factual innocence lightly,” said Paula Mitchell, director of Cal State LA’s Los Angeles Innocence Project, which helped Hastings win his freedom. “It rarely, rarely happens.”
Prosecutors too often hang onto their belief that someone is guilty when they are not, or want to avoid civil liability for their office, she said. But she also said “sometimes the evidence is not black and white.”
A determination of factual innocence is actually better than a not guilty verdict, which says prosecutors were unable to prove their case beyond a shadow of a doubt.
We know with complete certainty that this person did not commit the crime that he was accused of.
— DA George Gascón
For more than two decades, Hastings had asked for DNA that…
Read the full article here
