A judge ordered the state of Kansas to pay a man $1.5 million after wrongfully sending him to prison for 23 years for a double murder he didn’t commit.
Lamonte McIntyre was arrested when he was 17 years old and charged with the murders of Doniel Quinn, 21, and Donald Ewing, 34. Without any physical evidence tying McIntyre to the scene, he was found guilty in 1994 based on the testimony of two eyewitnesses.
McIntyre’s case spent eight years under review by attorneys who believed in his innocence. His attorneys accused the prosecutor, Terra Morehead, of intimidating witnesses who knew McIntyre was innocent. They also found that the prosecution refused to test the gun shell casings from the crime scene for fingerprints, which also could have cleared McIntyre of the crime.
After 23 years in prison, McIntyre was found to have been wrongfully convicted in 2017. His wrongful conviction prompted a 2018 law in Kansas that required compensation to individuals found guilty of crimes they did not commit. On Monday, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced that McIntyre would be granted $65,000 for each year he was wrongfully imprisoned.
“We are committed to faithfully administering the state’s mistaken conviction law as the legislature wrote it,” Schmidt said. “In this case, our office worked diligently to obtain and review all available evidence, including evidence identified but not provided in the earlier judicial proceedings.”
McIntyre’s attorney, Cheryl Pilate, celebrated the payment, saying, “Today, Lamonte McIntyre has been declared, finally and conclusively, a completely innocent man. That long-overdue recognition, along with the statutory payment and other benefits, will help lighten a bit the heavy load he has carried. Lamonte is grateful for the benefits of the compensation statute, but he knows his fight for justice is far from over.”
In addition to the $1.5 million from the state, McIntyre is also suing the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, for their roles in his conviction. McIntyre was the third man to receive a wrongful termination payment from the state of Kansas. Richard Jones was awarded $1.1 million after spending 17 years in prison, and Floyd Bledsoe was awarded $1.03 million after spending 16 years behind bars.
