BALTIMORE — The Maryland Board of Public Works awarded over $2 million Wednesday to Anthony Hall, a Baltimore man who served 25 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

“Because of this gross miscarriage of justice, Mr. Hall spent 9,072 days behind bars for a crime he did not commit,” Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, said at a meeting of the Board of Public Works on Wednesday morning in Annapolis. “It took the state more than three decades to acknowledge Mr. Hall’s innocence.”

Hall, who is now 61, was not present at Wednesday’s meeting. Hall will receive $ 2,360,988 over the next two years under the Walter Lomax Act, and an additional $71,407 for his attorneys’ fees.

Moore said that there is “no amount of money, nor apologies, nor acknowledgment to right the wrongs that happened to this gentleman’s life.”

In 1992, a 28-year-old Hall was sentenced to 50 years in prison for second-degree murder, unlawful use of a handgun, and wearing a handgun in the commission of the murder of 20-year-old Gerard Dorsey. Dorsey suffered a fatal gunshot wound at the entrance of an alleyway in the Midtown-Edmondson neighborhood of West Baltimore.

According to the National Register of Exonerees, there were only two eyewitnesses at his trial, one of whom falsely confessed that he and Hall attended the same high school. Moore said that Hall’s attorney, Kenneth Mack Williams, called no witnesses.

Williams was later disbarred for ethics and tax violations.

Representing himself, Hall submitted petitions while incarcerated in an attempt to overturn his conviction. He was released on parole in 2017 after completing half of his sentence.

Last March, a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge vacated his sentence via a writ of actual innocence, which can be filed when newly discovered evidence that could have led to a different verdict is discovered. Hall received assistance from the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project with collecting new evidence and acquiring additional witness testimony.

Per the National Register of Exonerees, additional police reports that had not been disclosed during Hall’s trial found that an involved officer falsely testified about the existence of additional eyewitnesses, and that state prosecutors withheld additional evidence that impeached the testimony of an eyewitness, who said he was pressured to name Hall as the assailant by police.

The judge who issued Hall’s writ of actual innocence ordered a new trial, which was dismissed by the prosecution.

Hall now provides full-time care for his aging mother.

“As the chief executive of the state, I first want to say to Mr. Hall — who I hope is listening — how deeply sorry we are for the wrongs that happened to you,” Moore said.

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