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Jury deliberates in Bluffs’ wrongful conviction case

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December 12th, 2012 by Ric Hanson

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A jury in Des Moines is still trying to decide whether two Omaha, Neb., men should be paid millions of dollars for spending 25 years in prison on murder convictions later overturned. Jurors began deliberating Friday afternoon after 21 days in the courtroom. They spent eight hours Monday and six hours Tuesday working on the case. They must decide whether Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee should be paid by the city of Council Bluffs and two retired police officers who worked to convict them in 1978.

Harrington seeks more than $60 million and McGhee about $50 million. They claim former detectives Dan Larsen and Lyle Brown coerced witnesses into lying and hid evidence from their defense attorneys. The Iowa Supreme Court overturned their life sentences and released them in 2003.