Nick Sampson and Matthew Livers were jailed for months but were later exonerated. They will split the award.
Livers is developmentally disabled. He falsely confessed to murdering his aunt and uncle, but recanted the next day.
Several months later a man and woman from Wisconsin pleaded guilty to murdering Wayne and Sharmon Stock at their farmhouse. The pair are serving life prison terms.
The judgment is the maximum under the St. Paul Travelers Cos. policy for former CSI chief David Kofoed’s conduct.
Kofoed was the former chief crime scene investigator of Nebraska’s most populous county. He was convicted and sentenced to prison for planting blood evidence in the 2006 murder investigation.
In 2014, a U.S. Judge ordered Kofoed to pay the men $6.4 million.