Freed prisoner seeks compensation for tossed rape verdict

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A Louisiana man imprisoned for nearly four decades until his conviction for a 1979 rape was thrown out in 2018 is now fighting for compensation for being wrongfully convicted. The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reports that attorneys for Malcolm Alexander took his argument for compensation to a state appeals court Thursday. Attorneys for Alexander, now age 62, say DNA from evidence collected at the rape scene matched neither the victim nor Alexander. But a state judge later ruled that Alexander wasn’t eligible for money from the state innocence compensation fund because the evidence used to help free him didn’t legally establish his “factual innocence.”