Jury takes just one hour to reach a verdict for man who lost his ‘whole adult life’ to a crime he didn’t commit

A jury in Buffalo, New York, has given $80 million to the family of Darryl Boyd, a man who sat in prison for almost 25 years for a murder he never did. Boyd was one of several Black teenagers who got arrested for killing William Crawford back in 1976. People sometimes call this group the Buffalo Five. Boyd took his case to court in 2022 to sue the police and prosecutors in Erie County.

According to ABC News, Boyd’s lawyers said the police and prosecutors hid more than a dozen pieces of evidence that showed other people might have done the crime. They also said the police forced witnesses to lie and blame Boyd, and that prosecutors said things they should not have said when the trial ended. After hearing the case for two and a half weeks, the jury only needed about an hour to decide Boyd should get the money.

Ross Firsenbaum, one of Boyd’s lawyers, talked about how the false conviction destroyed Boyd’s entire life. “He lost his whole adult life to this wrongful conviction. The jury heard just how many years he was suffering in maximum security prison. All the terrible things you assume happen in prison, happened in prison,” Firsenbaum said. People who know about these cases say this is one of the biggest amounts of money ever given to someone who was locked up for something they did not do.

Getting out of prison did not fix what happened to him

Boyd got out of prison but then had to stay on parole for another 20 years. A judge finally threw out his conviction in 2021. The county decided not to try Boyd again or John Walker Jr., another man from the same case who also got his conviction thrown out. A third man who got convicted, Darren Gibson, left prison in 2008 and died the next year.

Life outside prison was really hard for Boyd. He had PTSD and felt anxious all the time. He could not get good jobs or keep them because he still had the conviction on his record. At some point, he started using drugs to deal with his pain and became addicted. Doctors told him he had pancreatic cancer that would kill him, and he died in 2023 before the trial happened. His mom and his son came to court every single day.

Firsenbaum said the county tried to say Boyd’s drug problem caused all his troubles, not the fact that he sat in prison for around 27 years for nothing. “And that’s offensive. And the jury recognized that and responded with this verdict,” he said. The lawyers showed the court that the police and prosecutors had a habit of doing wrong things back then, not just one person making one mistake. In other recent criminal cases, prosecutors have presented digital evidence like Google searches to prove premeditation.

Boyd and Walker had already made deals with the city of Buffalo and each got about $4.7 million. Walker got $28 million from the county earlier this year. Someone speaking for the county leader said they feel bad for Boyd’s family, but they think $80 million is way too much and plan to fight the decision.

Still, the fact that the jury decided so fast shows they really believed the police and prosecutors did wrong and that Boyd deserved the money. The case adds to other high-profile criminal proceedings making headlines across the country.