In a significant legal battle emerging from Maryland, a man wrongfully imprisoned for over three decades, including a painful ten years on death row, is seeking justice through a lawsuit against former law enforcement officials. Although the majority of those named in the suit have passed away, John Huffington is determined to hold them accountable for the 32 years he lost over murders he did not commit.
John Huffingtonโs tragic story took a turn in January 2023, when he received a pardon from then-Governor Larry Hogan. The pardon cited prosecutorial misconduct concerning a 1981 double murder in Harford County. Later in the year, under the administration of Governor Wes Moore, a Maryland board approved a compensation amounting to $2.9 million for Huffington.
In a statement released Thursday, Huffington, reflecting on his ordeal, expressed relief and pain, stating, โit took many, many painful years, but the truth eventually came out.โ Arrested at the tender age of 18, he conveyed his regret that neither of his parents lived to witness the vindication of his name. โAll of those years I spent behind bars damaged and strained my relationships, cost me the ability to have a family of my own, cost me the ability to be with my mother when she died, cost me precious time with my father who was in his nineties and suffering from Alzheimerโs when I finally was released,โ he lamented.
At 62, Huffington has always maintained his innocence. His release from Patuxent Institution in 2013 marked the end of an era of injustice, as he served 32 years of two life sentences for crimes he did not commit. His convictions came during two trials for the โMemorial Day Murders.โ The victims, Diane Becker and Joseph Hudson, were brutally killed while Beckerโs young son was left unharmed.
Huffingtonโs convictions were heavily reliant on evidence later deemed unreliable, including testimony about hair samples that supposedly matched his. The plausibility of this evidence was thrown into question when The Washington Post uncovered an FBI report in 2011 revealing that an FBI agent may have used flawed scientific methods or perhaps did not test the hair accurately in the first place.
In 2013, new DNA evidence emerged that did not match Huffington, prompting a Frederick County judge to vacate his convictions and call for a new trial. Eventually, the highest court in Maryland disbarred the lead prosecutor, Joseph Cassilly, in 2021 after determining that he withheld vital exculpatory evidence while lying about it afterward.
Cassilly, who claimed no wrongdoing, retired in 2019 and later passed away in January. Defending him posthumously, his brother Bob Cassilly attested to his heroism and long service to Harford County while in a wheelchair. โJoe cannot defend himself in this decades-old matter because he is now deceased, as are the other named defendants, except for one who is almost 80,โ Bob asserted.
The lawsuit, initiated on July 15 in a federal court in Baltimore, names Gerard Comen, the assistant stateโs attorney in Huffingtonโs case, along with several Harford County officials and sheriffโs office detectives โ notably David Saneman, William Van Horn, and Wesley J. Picha. Saneman remains the only surviving defendant and when reached for comment, he indicated unfamiliarity with the lawsuit, choosing to withhold further remarks.
Huffingtonโs lawsuit shines a glaring light on a grievous miscarriage of justice, now seeking reparations and accountability for those years lost in a system that failed him.