Maurice Hastings Wiki -Maurice Hastings Biography
A man who spent more than 38 years behind bars for a 1983 murder he did not commit was found not guilty by a judge in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Maurice Hastings was released from prison last year after long-unproven DNA evidence pointed to a different suspect. In October, the judge vacated Hastings’ conviction at the request of prosecutors from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and his lawyers from the Los Angeles Innocence Project.
Prosecutors and Hastings’ lawyers went back to court to ask Judge William C. Ryan to go one step further and find him not guilty in the 40-year-old murder. The judge’s declaration Wednesday of Hastings as “factually innocent” means that the evidence conclusively demonstrates that Hastings did not commit the crime.
Maurice Hastings Age
Maurice Hastings is 38 years old.
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“It means a lot. I am grateful for the judge’s ruling and the apology, everything has been wonderful today,” Hastings said after the hearing, according to the Los Angeles Innocence Project. “I am ready to move on with my life. Today I am a happy man.”
District Attorney George Gascón said Hastings “survived a nightmare.” “He spent nearly four decades in prison exhausting all avenues to prove his innocence while he was repeatedly denied,” Gascón said in a statement. “But Mr. Hastings has been adamant and faithful that one day he would hear a judge proclaim his innocence.”
Gascón said the ruling will clear Hastings’ name and pave the way for him to seek possible relief in connection with his wrongful conviction. When Hastings was released in October, Gascón said, “The system failed them. The system failed the victims,” according to CBS Los Angeles.
The station said that, announcing Tuesday that his office would join Hastings at Wednesday’s hearing, Gascon applauded Hastings for his “character” and “commitment” to his innocence, saying he had spoken to Hastings multiple times and never felt no anger or hate.
The victim in the case, Roberta Wydermyer, was sexually assaulted and killed with a single shot to the head, authorities said. Her body was found in the trunk of her vehicle in the city of Inglewood, near Los Angeles.
Hastings was charged with special circumstances murder and the district attorney’s office sought the death penalty, but the jury deadlocked. A second jury convicted him and he was sentenced in 1988 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Hastings maintained that he was innocent since his arrest. At the time of the victim’s autopsy, the coroner conducted a sexual assault exam and semen was detected on an oral swab, the district attorney’s office said in October.
Hastings sought DNA evidence in 2000, but at the time, the district attorney’s office denied the request. Hastings entered a plea of not guilty with the district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit in 2021, and DNA testing last June found the semen was not his.
The DNA profile was placed in a state database and matched to a person who was convicted of an armed kidnapping and forced copulation of a female victim who was placed in the trunk of a vehicle. The suspect, Kenneth Packnett, died in prison in 2020, prosecutors said.
Hastings, who was 69 when he was released from prison last October, told reporters at the time that he had prayed for the day of his release. “I’m not standing here as a bitter man, but I just want to enjoy my life now while I have it,” Hastings said.
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