By Bud Lowell
Rochester, NY – An appeals court ruling says Betty Tyson can't sue the state of New York for wrongful imprisonment.
Tyson spent nearly 25 years in prison on a 1973 Rochester murder conviction. She became the state's longest-serving female inmate.
Her conviction was overturned in 1998 after a judge ruled that evidence in her favor had been wrongly surpressed from her original trial. The district attorney's office -- which had turned up the evidence -- declined to try her again.
Betty Tyson received one-and-a-quarter million dollars from the City of Rochester to settle a wrongful conviction suit. But the state Court of Claims refused Tyson's 12-and-a-half million dollar suit against the state.
The Appellate Division of State Supreme Court upheld the Court of Claims ruling and refused to reinstate Tyson's lawsuit.