Wrongfully imprisoned man who spent 32 years behind bars sues former authorities

Annapolis, md. – A man from Maryland who was wrongly imprisoned for 32 years, including a decade in the death corridor, for two murders he did not commit, continued the former officials of the law enforcement in a trial announced on Thursday, although four of the five people appointed as a defendant died.

John Huffington was pardoned by the government of the time. Larry Hogan in January 2023. Hogan quoted the misconduct of the prosecution by granting Huffington a complete innocence to Huffington as part of a double murder of 1981 in the county of Harford. A Maryland council approved $ 2.9 million in Huffington remuneration later that year during the administration of Governor Wes Moore.

Huffington said in a statement on Thursday that “many painful years took many years, but the truth was finally out.” At only 18 years old at the time of his arrest, he said that none of his parents could see and understand that his name had been erased and that he was released.

“All these years that I spent behind the damaged bars and tense my relations, cost me the possibility of having a family of me, cost me the possibility of being with my mother when she died, cost me a precious time with my father who was in the 90s and suffering from Alzheimer when I was finally released,” he added.

Huffington, 62, has always maintained his innocence. He was released from Patuxent Institution in 2013 after having served 32 years of two perpetuity penalties.

He was sentenced twice in the killings known as “Memorial Day murders”. Diane Becker was stabbed to death in her recreational vehicle, while her 4 -year -old son was inside, was not injured. Joseph Hudson, Becker’s boyfriend, was fatally shot down and found a few kilometers (kilometers). A second suspect in the killings testified against Huffington, was found guilty of first degree murder and served 27 years.

The prosecutors relied on testimonials which were then discredited on the hair found on the crime scene which will correspond allegedly to Huffington.

He called on his first conviction in 1981. In 1983, a jury found him guilty of first degree murder and was sentenced to death. The prosecutors subsequently commissioned this sentence to two perpetuity mandates.

Questions about the evidence in the case appeared when the Washington Post discovered an FBI report in 2011 which revealed that the FBI agent who analyzed hair evidence in the case of Huffington may not have used reliable science, or even tested hair. The report was written in 1999, but the state prosecutor of Harford County Joseph Cassilly did not provide him with Huffington lawyers.

A County Judge of Frederick canceled Huffington’s convictions and ordered a new trial in 2013 after Huffington presented new evidence using DNA tests that were not available during his previous trials. When the hair evidence was tested for DNA over 30 years later, the results showed that it was not Huffington’s hair.

The highest jurisdiction of Maryland voted unanimously to tie Cassilly in 2021.

Cassilly, who argued that he did nothing wrong, retired in 2019. He died in January.

His brother, Bob Cassilly, who is now the executive of Harford County, said in a statement that his brother was a decorated war hero who was injured while he was serving his country and was a state prosecutor for 36 years in a wheelchair.

“Joe cannot defend himself in this decades old case because he has now died, just like the other appointed defendants, with the exception of the one who is almost 80 years old,” said Cassilly. “The government of the county of Harford, in which I am currently led by the county, has no role in this case – the county has never been the employer of the defendants”.

Huffington also continues the deputy prosecutor of the State on his case, Gerard Comen, the government of the county of Harford, and the detectives of the County Sheriff, David Saneman, William Van Horn and Wesley J. Picha. All except Saneman are now dead, according to the trial lodged on July 15 before the Federal Court of Baltimore.

Saneman told Washington Post on Wednesday that he had not seen or heard of the trial and refused to comment.