Mistaked by a Maryland man who stayed in prison for 32 years indicted the former authorities
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) – A Maryland man was wrongly imprisoned for 32 years, including a decade in death row, as two murders he did not commit were announced Thursday, although four of the five people known as the defendants were deceased.
John Huffington was pardoned by Gov at the time. Larry Hogan in January 2023. Hogan cites prosecutor misconduct to completely innocently pardon Huffington, who is linked to a double killing in Harford County in 1981. The Maryland board approved $2.9 million in Huffington compensation during the administration of Gov. Wes Moore.
“It took many years, but the facts finally came to life,” Huffington said in a statement Thursday. He was only 18 years old when he was arrested and said neither of his parents saw and understood his name had been cleared and he was released.
“The years I spent in prison over the years have damaged my relationships, lost my own family, enabled me to be with me when my mother died, allowed me to accompany my father in the nineties and suffered from Alzheimer’s disease when I was finally released,” he added.
Huffington, 62, has remained innocent. He was released from the Patuxent in 2013 after serving 32 years in prison.
He was convicted in the killing known as the “Memorial Day murder.” Diane Becker was stabbed to death in a recreational vehicle, while her 4-year-old son was not injured. Becker’s boyfriend, Joseph Hudson, was shot and found several miles (km). The second suspect who testified against Huffington in the homicide was convicted of first-degree murder and served for 27 years.
The prosecutor relied on testimony and later smeared the hair found at the crime scene, allegedly matching Huffington’s hair.
He appealed in 1981. In 1983, a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. The prosecutor later changed the sentence to two lifelong terms.
When the Washington Post discovered in 2011 that a FBI report found that FBI agents analyzed hair evidence in the Huffington case, questions arose. The report was written in 1999, but Harford County State Attorney Joseph Cassilly did not provide it to Huffington’s attorney.
A Frederick County judge evacuated Huffington’s belief and ordered a new trial in 2013 in new evidence of Huffington’s use of DNA tests that were not available at his earlier trial. More than 30 years later, when the hair evidence was tested, it turned out that it was not Huffington’s hair.
Maryland’s Supreme Court voted unanimously in 2021 to pass the disconnection Casilly.
Cassili insisted that he did nothing wrong and he retired in 2019. He died in January.
His brother, Bob Cassilly, now an executive in Harford County, said in a statement that his brother was a decorative war hero who was injured while serving the country and served as the county’s state attorney for 36 years in a wheelchair.
“Jo cannot defend himself in this decades-old thing because he is now dead and there are other defendants, except for the defendant who is nearly 80 years old,” Casili said. “My current role as county administrator, Harford County Government, has no role in this case – the county has never been the defendant’s employer.”
Huffington also sued Assistant State Attorney, Case, Gerard Comen, Harford County Government and County Sheriff’s Office Detectives, David Saneman, William Van Horn and Wesley J. Picha. All others are now dead, according to a lawsuit filed in Baltimore federal court on July 15.
Samman told the Washington Post Wednesday that he had not seen or heard of the lawsuit and declined to comment.
