Ronnie Long was paid a multimillion-dollar settlement last week stemming from his wrongful conviction in a rape case that led to him spending most of his life in prison. WFAE’s Tommy Tomlinson, in his "On My Mind" commentary, wonders what price could be put on that time.
What has your life been worth? This is not a rhetorical question. Let’s sit right here and do the math.
All those days you have awakened a free human being, able to go wherever you choose, meet with whomever you like, spend your time as you see fit, bed down at night in your own home. What is the value you would put on just one of those days? What about a week, a month, a year?
What about 44 years?
If that time was taken from you, how much would you pay to get it back?
The city of Concord and the State Bureau of Investigation announced a settlement last week to pay Ronnie Long $25 million for his wrongful conviction for rape in 1976.
He was 21 when he was convicted. He was not released until 44 years later. He spent more than two-thirds of his life behind bars.
He appealed his conviction from the very start. The case history put together by the National Registry of Exonerations will break your heart. Law enforcement officers filtered the jury pool to remove most potential Black jurors. (Long is Black and the victim was white.) An officer gave false statements on the stand. The rape kit disappeared. More than 40 fingerprints from the scene — none of them Long’s — were never shared with Long’s defense.
There was no physical evidence tying Long to the crime. Incredibly, prosecutors said this was proof that the police were being honest — because it showed that they didn’t plant any evidence.
No matter the facts, Long’s appeals were turned down time and again. Years turned into decades. He spent the prime of his life in a prison cell. Finally, in 2020, a federal appeals court ruled in his favor. He was released from prison and the charges were dropped.
Under state law, Long was entitled to a maximum of $750,000 as reparation for his wrongful conviction. As he said at the time: “You tell me that $750,000 is worth 44 years of my life?”
So he sued in federal court. And that led to the $25 million settlement —-$22 million paid out by the city of Concord, and the rest by the SBI.
I asked a question a little earlier on: If that much time were taken from you, how much would you pay to get it back?
It’s an interesting exercise. But it ignores the reality. Those years are gone. They could pay Ronnie Long $25 billion and it wouldn’t compensate for how much of his one-and-only life ebbed away behind the walls of a prison.
They don’t have to be special days to be precious. Even the most ordinary humdrum day is worth a bag of diamonds, because it is a one-time-only offer, and the expiration date is now. There is nothing worth more than our priceless hours. And there is no crime worse than unfairly taking them away.
Tommy Tomlinson’s On My Mind column runs Mondays on WFAE and WFAE.org. It represents his opinion, not the opinion of WFAE. You can respond to this column in the comments section at wfae.org. You can also email Tommy at ttomlinson@wfae.org
