04-08-2021, 06:10 PM
After spending 44 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, this man says his life is worth more than $750,000
![[Image: 210407201004-ashleigh-ronnie-long-exlarge-169.jpg]](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210407201004-ashleigh-ronnie-long-exlarge-169.jpg)
(CNN)Ronnie Long sat in jail in North Carolina for 44 years for a crime he didn't commit, and now he is planning to fight a law that says he is only owed $750,000.
Long, who is Black, was accused of raping a White woman in 1976. An all-White jury found him guilty of rape and burglary and sentenced him to life in prison.
After maintaining his innocence, and pursuing a lifetime of appeals and denied motions, he was released by a pardon from the governor in December 2020 after the courts found Long had been wrongly convicted.
Since his sentencing, "a trickle of post-trial disclosures has unearthed a troubling and striking pattern of deliberate police suppression of material evidence," US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote.
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