Client Settles Civil Rights Case for $3.4 million
Jul.18.2009
Our client, The Estate of Kenneth Waters, settled a civil rights case against The Ayer Police Department, Officer Nancy Taylor, and other Ayer police officers, for $3.4 million.
Kenneth Waters was wrongfully arrested and convicted. He served 18 years of a life sentence for the 1980 murder and armed robbery of Katharina Brow. Waters was released from prison after DNA evidence had revealed the blood of an unknown person at the murder scene. Waters died during an accidental fall shortly after being granted his freedom.
His sister, Betty Anne Waters, had put herself through law school in order to represent one client: her brother. She located the biological evidence and worked to have it subjected to DNA testing.
Waters complaint alleged that the Ayer Police and Taylor's deliberate bad-faith suppression of favorable evidence led to his conviction – including suppression of evidence that Waters was not the source of the perpetrator’s bloody fingerprint on a piece of a toaster on the dining room floor; as well as suppression of Waters’ time card from work, which cemented his alibi. Taylor was also accused of used coercive and suggestive tactics to manufacture falsely incriminating statements from witnesses Brenda Marsh and Roseanna Perry.
The civil rights case filed by Dennis Maher against many of the same defendants for similar actions during this era is pending.
Kenneth Waters was wrongfully arrested and convicted. He served 18 years of a life sentence for the 1980 murder and armed robbery of Katharina Brow. Waters was released from prison after DNA evidence had revealed the blood of an unknown person at the murder scene. Waters died during an accidental fall shortly after being granted his freedom.
His sister, Betty Anne Waters, had put herself through law school in order to represent one client: her brother. She located the biological evidence and worked to have it subjected to DNA testing.
Waters complaint alleged that the Ayer Police and Taylor's deliberate bad-faith suppression of favorable evidence led to his conviction – including suppression of evidence that Waters was not the source of the perpetrator’s bloody fingerprint on a piece of a toaster on the dining room floor; as well as suppression of Waters’ time card from work, which cemented his alibi. Taylor was also accused of used coercive and suggestive tactics to manufacture falsely incriminating statements from witnesses Brenda Marsh and Roseanna Perry.
The civil rights case filed by Dennis Maher against many of the same defendants for similar actions during this era is pending.