Syracuse, N.Y. – In a surprisingly partisan vote, Onondaga County legislators on Tuesday failed to approve a $1 million settlement that would have ended a decades-long legal battle over a 1987 murder case.
Only eight legislators voted in favor of settling a civil rights lawsuit brought by the estate of Hector Rivas, who died in 2016 while awaiting a new trial over his conviction for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Valerie Hill.
Rivas contended that he was wrongly convicted based on phony evidence provided by the county’s medical examiner at the time…