Suspect in Kansas City firefighters’ deaths wins legal award

(AP) — A federal judge has awarded more than $344,000 in legal fees to a man who spent nearly 22 years in prison after six Kansas City firefighters died in an explosion in 1988. 

The Kansas City Star reports a judge issued the reward in a lawsuit filed by Bryan Sheppard, who was one of five people convicted after the explosion. 

He was 17 at the time. Sheppard was freed from prison in 2017 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it is unconstitutional to impose mandatory life sentences on juveniles. 

Sheppard, who always maintained his innocence, sued the U.S. Justice Department for records from a 2011 federal investigation into the explosion.