Former death row inmate agrees to settle suit
Former death row inmate Yancy L. Douglas has accepted a settlement in his $32 million lawsuit against a former prosecutor and the state of Oklahoma.
How much he will be paid from taxpayer dollars under the settlement was not immediately disclosed.
“The terms of it are confidential,” said John W. Coyle, one of his attorneys.
Douglas, 43, and another former death row inmate, Paris Lapriest Powell, 44, filed separate lawsuits in Oklahoma City federal court in 2010 after their murder convictions were overturned.
A jury trial in Douglas’ lawsuit had been scheduled to begin next week. The case was settled Wednesday.
A jury trial in Powell’s lawsuit is set to begin Sept. 12. He also is seeking $32 million.
Douglas and Powell were on death row for years after being convicted at separate trials in the fatal drive-by shooting of a 14-year-old girl, Shauna Farrow.
The prosecutor alleged they were in a gang and were shooting at a rival gang member when they hit the girl, too. The shooting took place late June 24, 1993, in southeast Oklahoma City.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned their convictions in 2009 after concluding the prosecutor, Brad Miller, had committed misconduct.
The federal appeals court condemned the prosecutor for his “knowing use of false testimony” from the only eyewitness.
The eyewitness, Derrick Smith, identified the two men as the shooters but later said he was too drunk and high to identify anyone. The two men were freed in October 2009 when new prosecutors opted not to retry them because of Smith’s conflicting versions.
Police concluded Smith had been the real target of the drive-by shooting. He was shot in the hip.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court in 2013 suspended Miller from practicing law for 180 days for “reprehensible” misconduct in the 1993 murder case. One justice wrote Miller’s actions in the case “take us into the dark, unseen, ugly, shocking nightmare vision of a prosecutor who loves victory more than he loves justice.”
Miller was an assistant district attorney in Oklahoma County at the time of the trials. He now is a successful civil attorney. He always has denied any wrongdoing. His attorney in the civil cases, Murray Abowitz, declined to comment Friday.
Douglas, who went by the first name “Yancey” for the lawsuit, complained he was incarcerated more than 16 years “for a crime he did not commit.” He complained he spent more than 13 of those years on death row.
A psychologist who examined Douglas shortly after his release in 2009 wrote he was experiencing “a combination of phobic and post-traumatic stress symptoms.”
Miller planned to put on evidence at the civil trial that Douglas was the shooter and that any damages he suffered from being incarcerated “was caused by his own criminal action.”
Miller also wanted to put on evidence the eyewitness only recanted out of fear for his safety after being intimidated in prison.
Miller’s attorneys told the judge presiding over the case that the eyewitness “falsely accused” the former prosecutor after being intimidated.
Douglas is back in prison, serving a 10-year sentence for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He was convicted at a trial in 2014.
He drove off after he was pulled over in 2012 for speeding in a high-crime area, according to testimony at the trial. A police officer was struck by a passenger door. The officer had been reaching inside the vehicle for a gun.