Wrongfully Convicted North Carolina Man Receives Pardon After 24 Years in Prison for Murder

A North Carolina man was pardoned Friday after serving 24 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit.

Montoyae Dontae Sharpe was 19 when he was convicted of murdering George Radcliffe, 33, who was found shot to death in his vehicle. He was sentenced to life in prison.

On Friday, Governor Roy Cooper pardoned Sharpe. The pardon clears the way for Sharpe to seek $750,000 in compensation for his wrongful conviction, according to The Washington Post. Under North Carolina law, persons wrongly convicted of felonies are eligible for compensation.

“I have carefully reviewed Montoyae Dontae Sharpe’s case and am granting him a Pardon of Innocence,” Governor Cooper said in a statement. “Mr. Sharpe and others who have been wrongly convicted deserve to have that injustice fully and publicly acknowledged.”

Sharpe was convicted with the testimony of a 15-year-old witness who said she saw him arguing with the victim over drugs. The witness, Charlene Johnson, recanted her statement two weeks later.

In 2019, Johnson testified during an evidentiary hearing that she did not witness the shooting. Sharpe was released from prison in August of that same year, and the district attorney dismissed Sharpe’s murder charge. The DA’s office said it would not retry the case, citing a lack of evidence. 

“I haven’t soaked it in yet. It was a surprise,” Sharpe said of his pardon. “Now my family’s name has been cleared. It lifts a burden off my shoulders.”