USA - North Carolina. State pays $3.9 million to Alan Gell for wrongful conviction.

State pays $3.9 million for wrongful conviction. The State Bureau of Investigation has agreed to a $3.9 million settlement with former death row inmate Alan Gell to end his lawsuit accusing the SBI of fabricating evidence and obstructing justice, according to documents made public today. Gell, 35, said the settlement amount is a concession of his innocence and the SBI's wrongdoing. He was in jail on a car theft charge when the murder for which he was wrongly convicted occurred. The settlement was made on behalf of SBI special agent Dwight Ransome. He was the lead investigator into the 1995 killing of Allen Ray Jenkins. According to a case summary by the agent's own lawyer, Ransome had decided that Gell was guilty early on, despite having statements from 17 independent witnesses who saw Jenkins alive after Gell was jailed on unrelated charges. Ransome recommended Gell be charged with murder while failing to inform the prosecutor of a host of evidence favorable to Gell: taped telephone calls, a failed polygraph test and the 17 witness statements. Instead, he built the case on the stories of two drug-abusing 15-year-old girls whose stories changed every time they were interviewed or testified. The 2 pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and testified against Gell; no one else has been prosecuted. SBI Director Robin Pendergraft said that Ransome has been transferred to an administrative job in Raleigh and will not conduct any more investigations. His salary, $72,849, is unchanged. Gell spent 4 years on death row. On December 10, 2002 (see) a judge ordered a new trial because prosecutors withheld evidence favorable to Gell. On February 18, 2004 (see) a jury unanimously acquitted him at a retrial. (see also September 24, 2004)