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Long Beach Awards $8M Settlement In Wrongful Conviction by Ryan ZumMallen | Archive | 08.12.10 |
+ 9:40am | A man who served 24 years in prison before two federal judges ruled that he was wrongly convicted will receive a nearly $8 million settlement from the City of Long Beach, according to the Associated Press [AP]. The city agreed to the settlement on Wednesday. Testimony from a jailhouse informant led to the 1979 murder conviction of Thomas Goldstein, who was freed in 2004 after the judges and a federal appeals panel ruled in his favor. Goldstein had sued L.A. County Prosecutors for using testimony from jailed informants without checking their stories. Goldstein was living in Long Beach in 1979 when John McGinest was killed by a shotgun blast in an alley near Goldstein's home. After some witnesses described a black shooter and some described a white shooter, Goldstein was jailed for the crime and shared a cell with heroin addict Edward Fink. He would later testify that Goldstein confessed to the crime during their time together, and prosecutors based their case on Fink's testimony despite well-known credibility issues. Prosecutors also made a deal with Fink to ease his sentence for cooperating in the Goldstein case, but they did not tell the defense. On those grounds, a judge oveturned Goldstein's conviction. Not everyone agrees with the ruling. From the AP: Long Beach Deputy Attorney Monte Machit says despite Wednesday's settlement, city officials deny that Goldstein was wrongfully arrested or that his constitutional rights were violated. Machit told the L.A. Times [LAT] that the city agreed to the settlement because it would have been more expensive to fight the case in court, and a financially-strapped Long Beach couldn't afford it.
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14 Comments so far.
KJ Would you sit in prison for 24 years of your life if you knew you were being paid $333,333 per year? Watchful Eye L.A. County Prosecutors totally screwed the pooch on this one, and of course won't admit it. Besides the fact (a pretty widely and well known fact I might add) that Fink's credibility was questionable at best, there were other very valid questions about the identity of the shooter, beyond the differing statements as noted about witnesses not even agreeing about the ethnicity of the suspect. Looks like another case where the Prosecutor was more concerned with the convictions scorecard than about seeing real justice done. Put your ego back in your pocket and focus on doing the job right! @KJ No, of course not. teacher I wouldn't spend ONE year in jail for the entire 8 million! I hear the food isn't top notch, the accommodations are not 4-star, and speaking of screwing the pooch, I don't care to be the pooch. Tom Martin Smart for the City to close this case fast, this guy could of owned our City if it went to trial. Jail house rats, I sure hope they are no longer used. I am sure "like ya I just got arrested and the first thing I do is tell my crime to some junkie cell mate, ya right" one thing people do in jail is keep their mouth shout and say they did not do it. RAT FINK? Joe Cocker sang it best... {What would you do, if I sang out of tune... Would you stand up and walk out on me?} Where is that FINK now? Did he get released? Georgie Why is the City of Long Beach paying when the suit was against LA County? Does the City of Long Beach control LA country prosecutors'office? watersnoopy That's because Monte is Long Beach City Attorney along Robert Shannon is a bunch of goons who runs the city like mob. Just look at city practice in parking ticket. m And how many in the prosecutors office will pay any sort of penalty if they are alive? Prosecutorial misconduct should be among the highest level felonies. It's worse than murder, because there can never be an excuse for it. TF How come it took 24yrs? CHARLIE The City is fortunate that it got off so cheap! chuck Where is the City getting the money? Parking tickets???? Carlos How many more of these pay outs in similar circumstances have ocurred within the past ten years? And where does the money come from? It appears to me that there are/was two legal paths. Were there any appeals of this award and which lawyers handled the appeal process? Were there contract attorneys involved? How much of the award is paid by insurance and how much will come from the City's General Fund? And how much of a deficit will the City now have? This entire case needs to be audited from arrest to the time this person was released from prison after twenty fours. CHARLIE Probably from Obama - He loves to bail everybody out with our tax money - Yeah he's a regular Robin Hood with your money and you notice that he and family are living pritty high on the hog and gold plated road themselves lately.
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Ryan ZumMallen has served as the managing editor of the LBPOST.com since 2007. He graduated from CSULB with a degree in Print Journalism in 2008 and is a member of the 2009 class of Leadership Long Beach. You can find him on various basketball courts around the city.
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