Minnesota Man Who Spent Nearly 20 Years in Prison Sues Minneapolis Police for Wrongful Conviction After Life Sentence Vacated

For nearly two decades, Marvin Haynes sat behind bars for a murder he insisted he never committed. Now, after his life sentence was overturned, he is suing Minneapolis and five officers for fabricating evidence that led to his wrongful conviction.

Back in 2004, Haynes, now 37, was charged and later convicted of killing Randy Sherer at a Minneapolis flower shop despite his repeated claims that he was never there. He was just 16 years old at the time of the murder.

After 18 years in prison, a Hennepin County judge overturned his conviction, calling it an "egregious terrible injustice," and recognized what Haynes had argued all along—his innocence.

"The complaint we filed today tells my story—one I've been telling since I was arrested in 2004," Haynes said per local news. "I'm grateful that people are now listening, but it is devastating that it took so long for the truth to come out. My life was destroyed by the officers who wrongly chose to fabricate a case against me, and I have a long road in front of me to heal."

His lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, claims homicide investigators "coerced statements from multiple other vulnerable teens" to falsely identify and testify against him. It also states police ignored the lack of forensic evidence and arrested him without probable cause even though his fingerprints didn't match those at the scene.

"We cannot change the fact that Mr. Haynes was wrongly incarcerated for almost 20 years, or give him back the formative years he spent in prison, but today we have begun the process of seeking justice and accountability for him," said Emma Freudenberger, a partner at Neufeld Scheck Brustin Hoffmann & Freudenberger, the civil rights firm representing Haynes. "The Minneapolis Police Department officers who framed Mr. Haynes and the Department that allowed this injustice need to answer for their actions."

Haynes also filed a separate claim against Minnesota, seeking $100,000 for each year he was wrongfully imprisoned.

Every year, nearly 1,000 innocent people, an average of more than two per day, are wrongly convicted and sent to prison, adding to the roughly 11,500 already behind bars for crimes they didn't commit, according to estimates from Baldani Law Group.

Innocent Black people are seven times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder than innocent white people, the Innocence Project reports.

Wrongful convictions cost taxpayers hundreds of millions each year.

"Innocence is harder to prove than guilt." Haynes previously posted.