For nearly four decades, Maurice Hastings sat in a prison cell for a crime he did not commit. Now, the City of Inglewood has agreed to pay the 72-year-old Black man $25 million in compensation for the years stolen from him—a sum that cannot begin to repay the toll of wrongful incarceration.

Hastings was convicted in 1983 of the kidnapping and murder of an Inglewood woman, along with the attempted murder of her husband and a friend. For years, he proclaimed his innocence. But the system failed him, silencing his voice and denying him justice.

It wasn’t until 2022—nearly 40 years later—that new DNA evidence proved Hastings was telling the truth all along. The evidence not only exonerated him but also identified another suspect. In 2023, a California superior court formally declared Hasting

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