A federal jury awarded Mark Schand of Connecticut more than $27 million dollars in a civil verdict after Schand spent that many years in a Massachusetts state prison for a 1986 murder he said he didn’t commit, reports MassLive.com. It is by far the largest ever civil judgment against Springfield, Ma., police officers. The surviving four defendants in the lawsuit were Deputy Chief Elmer McMahon, patrolmen Raymond Muise and Leonard Scammons, and Sgt. Michael Reid, all retired. “The city stands behind these officers, but by state law our indemnification is limited to $1 million per officer, so the city’s maximum liability in this case is $4 million,” said Springfield City Solicitor Edward Pikula.
Schand, 55, was accused of the murder of Victoria Seymour outside a club. Seymour, a young mother of three, caught a stray bullet in the back after a drug deal went bad outside the club. Witnesses told police the shooting followed a dispute between young men in Hartford, Ct., and Springfield. A photo of Schand, 21, was included in material Hartford police passed on to Springfield detectives. Schand and his attorneys have long argued that Springfield detectives skewed photo arrays and police line-ups, which led to Schand being wrongly convicted in Hampden Superior Court. Pikula blamed inconsistent witness statements, rather than bad police work. “While Mr. Schand is a free and innocent man today … the only injustice that was proved in court was that several individuals lied and failed to come forward, but that had nothing to do with the police officers involved,” he said.