A Connecticut federal jury on Wednesday handed an exonerated murder defendant $5.7 million, finding a town police officer negligent for failing to stop evidence fabrication by a state police interrogator.

The verdict capped an eight-day trial that reexamined Ralph "Ricky" Birch's 1989 conviction in the 1985 murder of Everett Carr inside his New Milford home. Birch had asked the jury for about $50 million, or $5,000 per day for the three decades he spent behind bars.

"I'm not bitter; I don't want to be bitter," Birch told Law360 after the split verdict. "They kept me locked up long enough. I'm done with that. I'm just going to move on and have the best rest of my life as I can."

The jury deliberated for about eight and a half hours before rendering the decision.

Birch accused former town police officer David Shortt, who died in 2019, of allowing a state police interrogator to feed key details to a jailhouse informant who later testified that Birch had confessed. He also accused former officer Steven Jordan of suppressing material favorable evidence for failing to raise red flags about a bank envelope containing $1,000.

The jury rejected Birch's federal civil rights violations claims but found Shortt was negligent. Jordan escaped all liability.

According to Birch, Jordan returned the cash to Carr's daughter rather than flag it as evidence that could have helped his defense.

Police theorized Carr was beaten, stabbed 27 times, and slit through the throat during a burglary. They came to suspect Birch, then 18, and Shawn Henning, then 17, described by their attorneys as two small-time burglars trying to feed a drug habit.

If Carr died during a bona fide burglary, the $1,000 would not have been left at the scene, Birch's attorneys argued.

They suggested the police snagged the cash for safekeeping during an initial sweep of Carr's home and cataloged it on separate paperwork as having been seized without a warrant.

The scant paper trail detailing the discovery doesn't say precisely who found the envelope or when it was found, Birch's attorneys noted during his federal civil rights trial.

The few papers that do exist were not included in official evidence binders used at Birch's 1989 trial, leaving his defense team in the dark, they argued.

Jordan said the cash was likely hidden and may not have even been found inside Carr's home. He claimed the cash wasn't relevant to the crime and was properly turned over to Carr's daughter.

Shortt's estate downplayed the degree to which a state police interrogator fed crime scene details to the jailhouse snitch who later testified that Birch had admitted killing Carr.

The informant, Todd Cocchia, recanted his testimony 27 years later.

Birch's lawsuit accused Jordan and Shortt's estate of common-law and statutory negligence and of violating federal civil rights statutes.

His attorneys said investigators should have followed evidence pointing away from either Birch or Henning. The duo were living out of an unkempt car that contained no evidence of the crime, defense counsel said. Bloody shoeprints in Carr's home didn't match footwear owned by either teen and were several sizes too small for either teen to wear, and unknown DNA was eventually found mixed with several samples of the victim's blood. Hair samples also didn't line up, they said.

New Milford's then-deputy police chief interviewed Birch and Henning in the days following the murder. He testified during the civil rights case that he quickly concluded neither teen was involved. The chief benched him and pressed forward despite his concerns, the deputy chief said.

The state of Connecticut separately settled with Birch and Henning for $12.6 million each in 2024, scuttling accusations that Henry C. Lee, a renowned forensics expert and former director of the Connecticut State Forensic Laboratory, falsely testified that a towel recovered from an upstairs bathroom in Carr's home tested positive for blood during an initial screen.

When asking lawmakers to approve the settlement in 2024, Deputy Attorney General Eileen Meskill said the towel was never tested before trial and that subsequent tests proved that a small red stain on the towel was not blood.

Birch is represented by David A. Lebowitz, Douglas E. Lieb and Alyssa Isidoridy of Kaufman Lieb Lebowitz & Frick LLP.

The New Milford defendants are represented by Elliot B. Spector, Jeffrey O. McDonald and Forrest Noirot of Hassett & George PC.

The case is Birch v. New Milford et al., case number 3:20-cv-01790, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

--Editing by Marygrace Anderson.