Man free after new trial, settlement in Wyoming assault case

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — Josh Black sits outside a coffee shop.

It’s July 10, temperatures are in the 90s and the Wyoming wind is whipping hard as he starts to cry.

“It’s the one thing we have as U.S. citizens,” Black said. “We have people who die for our country every day so we can have a fair trial. I never got one.”

Black, who was released from state custody March 11 after almost six years in prison, was recently awarded $135,000 in a settlement against former prosecutor Becket Hinckley, former county attorney Steve Weichman and county attorney Erin Weisman. Weichman, the only one of the three to comment, said: “I am very pleased that it is over and I hope all are reasonably happy with the outcome.”

Black now lives in Casper, works as an electrician. He’s on parole, waiting the OK to return to California, where he’s from.

“I haven’t seen the ocean in six years,” he said. “I just want everyone to leave me alone, and I want to get on with my life.”

Black’s aggravated assault case is a historic one for Teton County.

It left Black with a felony conviction and a life sentence until he convinced the Wyoming Supreme Court four years into his sentence to reverse his conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct.

They awarded him a new trial in 2017, agreeing his first was unjust.

“It was a Salem witch trial,” Black said. “There is no way another jury would have convicted me.”

The case is also the reason former prosecutor Becket Hinckley could lose his license to practice law.

But instead of going through another trial Black took a deal.

“The only thing I regret is not going back to trial,” Black said. “I would have gotten my name cleared.”

Black, 41, was found guilty by a Teton County jury in 2015 for an October 2014 assault...