The city of Inglewood has agreed to pay a record $25 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit brought by a man who was wrongfully imprisoned for over 38 years for a 1983 robbery-homicide and sexual assault he did not commit, it was announced Tuesday.
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Maurice Hastings, now 72, was set free in October 2022 after new DNA test results pointed conclusively to another suspect.
No physical evidence linked Hastings to the crimes for which he was arrested and convicted, and numerous alibi witnesses attested to his whereabouts during the crimes. Prosecutors sought to impose the death penalty following Hastings' guilty verdict, but the jury instead sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Biological evidence collected from the victim as part of a sexual assault kit had been preserved but never DNA-tested, despite Hastings' repeated requests dating back decades.
"I have been incarcerated for over fifteen years for a murder that I did not commit," Hastings wrote in a letter to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office in 2000. "The most compelling of the evidence that has not as of yet been examined is the DNA evidence which will conclusively show that I was not the person involved with the deceased at the time of the crime."
The settlement was announced Tuesday with a trial date in Los Angeles federal court approaching later this month. The federal civil rights complaint has now been dismissed.
Attorneys for Hastings claim the $25 million constitutes California's largest-ever wrongful conviction settlement.
"This historic settlement is a powerful vindication for Mr. Hastings, who has shown remarkable fortitude first in fighting to prove his innocence, and then in showing that he was framed," Nick Brustin, one of Hastings' attorneys, said in a statement. "Police departments throughout California and across the country should take notice that there is a steep price to pay for allowing such egregious misconduct on their watch."
Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. said the settlement is the best outcome for Hastings.
"There is no way you can make someone whole for losing 38 years of their life, their formative years in adulthood and the opportunity to have a family," Butts told City News Service. "That being said, this is the best that can be done, and we in the city wish him the best as he moves on with his life."
Wrongly arrested at 31 for the 1983 carjacking, rape and murder of Roberta Wydermyer and attempted murders of her husband Billy Wydermyer and his friend George Pinson, Hastings' first trial ended in a deadlocked jury.
The second trial lasted four months and included more than 100 witnesses and nearly 300 exhibits. That jury deliberated for two weeks before convicting him of murder.
Hastings was exonerated in 2022 at the age of 69. On March 1, 2023, based on a joint motion by the Los Angeles County district attorney and the Los Angeles Innocence Project at Cal State Los Angeles, a Superior Court judge declared Hastings factually innocent.
The DNA evidence revealed the identity of the sole real perpetrator: Kenneth Packnett, a convicted sex offender with a long history of criminal behavior similar to the crimes in the case, who had been arrested for other offenses but released by the Inglewood Police Department shortly after he committed the Wydermyer crimes.
Packnett died in prison in 2020 while serving time for a separate kidnapping and rape.
Hastings lives in Southern California, where he is active in his church and volunteers distributing meals to people experiencing homelessness.
"No amount of money could ever restore the 38 years of my life that were stolen from me," Hastings said in a statement. "But this settlement is a welcome end to a very long road, and I look forward to moving on with my life. I thank God that I've made it to the other side of this decades-long ordeal, and I thank my family and legal team for their steadfast support over the years."
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