Darryl Howard, still waiting for $6M for wrongful conviction, to address Durham council

Update: The group Emancipate NC originally said Darryl Howard would address the Durham City Council on Tuesday night, but there was no public comment session at the meeting, and the group says Howard hope to speak at a work session Thursday.

The story has been updated to clarify that the judgment was against Darrell Dowdy.

Darryl Howard, who won a $6 million judgment against a former Durham police officer after spending 23 years in prison for a wrongful conviction, will address the Durham City Council about the city’s continued refusal to pay, according to Emancipate NC.

City Attorney Kimberly Rehberg has said the “city’s hands were tied” by a state law, The News & Observer previously reported.

But attorneys with Emancipate NC, a Durham-based civil rights organization, disagree.

Ian Mance, Dawn Blagrove and Elizabeth Simpson sent a letter to the City Council on Monday saying they had watched the developments with “a growing sense of alarm.”

“While we were not privy to the conversations that led to your decision, declining payment of a judgment for a wrongful conviction strikes our organization as morally wrong and very bad public policy,” they wrote.

In 2021, a federal jury found former Durham police detective Darrell Dowdy made up evidence in the case and trial that resulted in Howard being convicted in 1995 of killing Doris Washington, 29, and her 13-year-old daughter, Nishonda.

Howard’s 80-year sentence ended in 2016 when a Durham County judge vacated the convictions, citing police and prosecutorial misconduct.

Kerwin Pittman, director of policy and program for Emancipate NC, said the city was denying Howard true justice and setting a worrying precedent.

“Just stop for a second and place yourself in Darryl Howard’s shoes. You have been kidnapped from your loved ones and unjustly incarcerated in a cage. Made to endure over 20 years of hard time for a crime you knew you didn’t commit. Finally, released, only to be tormented yet again by unnecessary and unwarranted state-sanctioned violence,” he wrote in a comment to The N&O.

The City Council will take public comment at a 1 p.m. Thursday work session.

Why hasn’t Durham paid Darryl Howard?

The council made its decision in a series of closed sessions between December and February.

Rehberg told The N&O in April that because the jury found Dowdy acted in “bad faith,” a North Carolina law blocked them from paying.

Emancipate NC contends the statute she cited doesn’t mention juries and lets the Council decide.

“It is up to you,” the group’s attorneys wrote. “Unless a vote is or was called on the question of whether Mr. Dowdy acted because of ‘actual malice,’ and the majority of the council votes or voted yes, then the general statutes present no obstacle to paying Mr. Howard.”

Rehberg also cited a local resolution stating judgments entered against city employees should only be paid by the city if the employees were “engaged in the good faith performance of (their) duties.”

Emancipate NC said that 1981 resolution doesn’t apply, nor is it binding.

“The Council is not bound by the decisions of its predecessors. The present Council has every authority to revise earlier-adopted resolutions,” they wrote. “In other words, the city’s hand are not ‘tied.’”

Both Howard and Dowdy appealed the case to the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals this summer.

“Because the case is on appeal, the City has no comment at this time,” Rehberg wrote in an email Tuesday.

This report relied on reporting by staff writer Virginia Bridges.