A Kansas man who spent 23 years in prison for a double murder he did not commit was granted more than $1.5 million in compensation under the state's mistaken-conviction statute. The Kansas attorney general's office said Monday that Lamonte McIntyre of Kansas City, Kansas, also received a certificate of innocence as part of a resolution of a mistaken-conviction lawsuit filed last year.
McIntyre was 17 in 1994 when he was arrested for the killings of 21-year-old Doniel Quinn and 34-year-old Donald Ewing, even though no physical evidence or motive tied him to the crimes. McIntyre received two life sentences in their deaths, but he was freed in 2017 after a local prosecutor asked the court to vacate his convictions and to drop all charges, calling his case an example of "manifest injustice."
Documents made public during an 8-year effort to exonerate Lamonte McIntyre allege the homicide detective on the case used his power to prey for decades on African-American women, including McIntyre's mother. They also accuse the prosecutor of intimidating witnesses who told her McIntyre was not the killer. And they say the presiding judge had a romantic relationship with the prosecutor before the trial that neither disclosed at the time.
This is the third case in Kansas in which compensation has been granted since the 2018 wrongful-conviction law was enacted.
