GIST: "The City of Milwaukee would pay $7.5 million to a man wrongfully incarcerated for 24 years based on bogus bite mark evidence, under a resolution before the Common Council. Robert Lee Stinson, 54, agreed to settle his claims against the city and one of its former police detectives for an initial payment of $3.5 million in August and $4 million in January, the resolution states. The settlement was reached after about eight days in a jury trial over his claims that detectives and dentists conspired to frame him in his neighbor's homicide using the bite mark evidence. “Mr. Stinson waited a very long time for this trial — 34 years since his arrest and nearly 10 years since filing his civil rights lawsuit seeking redress for his wrongful conviction," said Heather Lewis Donnell, one of his attorneys with the Chicago law firm Loevy and  Loevy. "Over the course of the week-and-half trial, the jury heard very powerful and moving testimony that convinced all sides that substantial compensation was in order. This is certainly the largest wrongful conviction settlement that Milwaukee has ever seen and one of the largest civil rights settlements as well.” The city's largest prior payout for wrongful conviction was $6.5 million to Chante Ott, who spent 13 years in prison for a homicide actually committed by serial killer Walter Ellis. The city, which is self-insured, will have to borrow the money to pay Stinson because it has already exhausted the funds in its account for damages and claims.  "The situation, in general, is a very unfortunate one and we don't want to deny the impact that that whole ordeal had on him and his family," Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton said. He said he thinks government is reaching a point where there is a recognition that decisions in the justice system are having a huge impact on communities and institutions financially. "I think we're getting to a point where it's actually more beneficial for us to deal justly with people as opposed to simply getting convictions," he said. "We don't want to be that kind of system, we don't want to be the type of system that's hellbent on locking people up as opposed to receiving and administering justice." Stinson was 20 years old when he says he was framed by detectives and dentists who provided expert opinions for the beating death of his 62-year-old neighbor and sentenced to life in prison. The Wisconsin Innocence Project helped free him in 2009 after a panel of forensic experts called the dentists' conclusions in Stinson's case unfounded and when DNA tested from the victim's clothing did not match Stinson. Stinson eventually got $115,000 from the State of Wisconsin. He sued the city, the detectives and the dentists that year. After a decade of pretrial litigation and appeals, the case went to trial in federal court last month. Stinson's lawyers presented evidence that detectives James Gauger and Thomas Jackelen, long deceased, had suspected Stinson and his friends in a different homicide two years earlier. One of the friends testified that he was 17 when he finally agreed to sign a false statement implicating the others after the detectives questioned him for seven hours. He recanted and none of the group was ever formally charged in that case. When Ione Cychosz was found dead near Stinson's home in November 1984 there was little evidence. DNA was not used at the time. But there were several apparent human bite marks on her body. The medical examiner asked Lowell Johnson, who taught at the Marquette dental school and was promoting techniques and theories in forensic dentistry, to take a look. Johnson believed whoever made the marks was missing an upper right incisor, something the detectives knew before they interviewed Stinson. When they noticed he was missing an upper right front tooth, they zeroed in on him as the only real suspect. He denied killing Cychosz and agreed to let Johnson make detailed photographs and molds of his teeth, which Johnson later used, in connection with photos and a model of the victim's breast, to conclude only Stinson could have made the marks. A colleague in the fledgling field in of bite mark evidence, Raymond Rawson of Las Vegas, said he agreed. A prosecutor, who later admitted his gut feeling was that Stinson did not kill Cychosz, was persuaded to charge him with murder based on the two experts' opinions. Just before closing arguments in the civil case, the parties announced a settlement but declined any comment whatsoever. While the city records show what it will pay for itself and retired detective James Gauger, there is no indication what the dentists agreed to pay. Their attorneys, Jason Franckowiak and Patrick Sullivan, did not return messages. The settlement has been assigned to the Judiciary and Legislation Committee, which meets on July 22, and the Finance and Personnel Committee, which meets on July 24. The Common Council next meets July 30."