The City of Inglewood has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed by Maurice Hastings, who spent nearly four decades behind bars for crimes he did not commit. Attorneys say the payout is the largest wrongful conviction settlement in California history.
Hastings, now 72, was exonerated in October 2022 after DNA testing conclusively identified another man as the perpetrator of the 1983 robbery-homicide and sexual assault that led to his conviction. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge later declared him “factually innocent.”
“No amount of money could ever restore the 38 years of my life that were stolen from me,” Hastings said in a statement. “But this settlement is a welcome end to a very long road, and I look forward to moving on with my life. I thank God that I’ve made it to the other side of this decades-long ordeal, and I thank my family and legal team for their steadfast support over the years.”
Hastings was 31 when he was arrested for the carjacking, rape, and murder of Roberta Wydermyer, as well as the attempted murders of her husband, Billy, and family friend, George Pinson. His first trial ended in a hung jury. At his second trial, jurors deliberated two weeks before convicting him of murder. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, but the jury instead sentenced him to life in prison without parole.
Although numerous alibi witnesses testified on Hastings’ behalf, no physical evidence ever tied him to the crimes. Crucially, biological evidence from a sexual assault kit had been preserved but never tested—despite Hastings’ repeated requests for DNA testing, including a 2000 letter to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office in which he wrote, “The DNA evidence will conclusively show that I was not the person involved with the deceased.”
It wasn’t until 2022 that the DNA was finally analyzed. The results identified Kenneth Packnett, a convicted sex offender with a history of similar crimes, as the sole perpetrator. Packnett, who had been briefly in police custody after the Wydermyer attack, later died in prison in 2020 while serving time for an unrelated kidnapping and rape.
Following the DNA breakthrough, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and the Los Angeles Innocence Project at Cal State LA jointly filed a motion to vacate Hastings’ conviction. He walked free at age 69, after spending 38 years in prison.
The $25 million settlement was reached just weeks before the case was set to go to trial in federal court. Hastings’ attorneys say it serves as a stark warning to police departments across the country. “This historic settlement is a powerful vindication for Mr. Hastings, who has shown remarkable fortitude first in fighting to prove his innocence, and then in showing that he was framed,” said Nick Brustin, one of Hastings’ lawyers. “Police departments throughout California and across the country should take notice that there is a steep price to pay for allowing such egregious misconduct on their watch.”