Detroit had money problems, but it came out of bankruptcy. It was called a “rebirth.” That didn’t help the fund with which to pay the judgments for the people wrongfully convicted, wrongfully imprisoned. It’s effectively broke.
“The current balance in the fund is so low that a single case or two could deplete it,” Rossman-McKinney said. “We cannot and should not lead people to believe they will be compensated for their wrongful incarceration if we are unwilling to appropriate the necessary funds.”
Michigan Department of Treasury spokesman Ron Leix said last week the exoneration fund contained about $1.6 million — or $400,000 less than the $2 million it owes just one wrongfully convicted murderer, Richard Phillips. Phillips spent 46 years in prison before his case was overturned, making him the longest-serving wrongfully convicted inmate in U.S. history, according to the Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan.
There are two “kinds” of people for whom the 2016 Wrongful Imprisonment Compensation Act exists. There are those who were the victims of misconduct, such as lying cops or witnesses or concealment of exculpatory evidence. And those the system just failed, not because of any particular malfeasance but because it’s a flawed system. Either way, they lost years of their life to the state’s failure and, as a matter of policy, have been deemed worthy of compensation.
The state of Michigan owes Nathaniel Hatchett $500,000 — but he can’t eat the two-page court document ordering compensation for his wrongful rape conviction, and it won’t pay his rent.
There is the obvious solution, that who cares whether funds are allocated to pay this debt. If the state owes it, then why should it be different than any other judgment? Seize a state building, a patrol car, maybe a street that’s frequently traveled, and set up a toll booth to turn it into a profit center. Fun thought though that might be, it’s not a practical answer. Governments aren’t individuals and aren’t as susceptible to execution of a judgment as the ordinary judgment debtor might be.
“But we’ve not yet begun the appropriations process in the Legislature,” she said. “(Adding money to the exoneration fund) must be done through the budget process — the governor gives her recommendation, gets input from department heads, and from there the House and Senate do their budgets, and find away to come together.”
Tiffany Brown, spokeswoman for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, said in a statement: “At this time, we are not commenting on specific items in the budget until the Governor releases her executive budget in March.”
People outside of government see government as a monolith, with a vast budget and never ending source of easy revenue. After all, if the government needs more money, they can just tax the people. It’s not as if the people can stop it. But government budgets are made up of allocated and unallocated funds, which are allowed to be used for different purposes by law. The funds to pay for wrongful incarceration go into an Exoneration Fund, and the funds to pay those judgments come out of it, and nowhere else.
While there are a separate bundle of issues, with more explicit solutions, directed at convictions caused by police or prosocutorial impropriety, that comprises only one cause of the problem, and those solutions, such as eliminating qualified immunity or requiring cops to carry insurance against their own malfeasance, wouldn’t help those whose wrongful convictions can’t be attributed to impropriety, but just a failed system. Plus, these solutions are replete with issues of their own, so it’s not as if these are easy answers, even if one is absolutely certain that these are great ideas.
But what does this have to do with the guys who spend years, decades, in prison and not hold worthless paper?
“It ain’t fair, man; it ain’t fair,” said Salter, who was released from prison Aug. 16 — his 36th birthday — after serving 15 years for a murder he didn’t commit.
“It’s sad — they convict us, and then when we’re found innocent they put us out into the world with nothing, no paperwork, no birth certificate,” said Salter, who started a nonprofit, Innocence Maintained, which helps exonerated ex-prisoners get basic necessities like food and clothing.
Aaron Salter didn’t ask to be convicted for a murder he didn’t commit. He didn’t ask to go to prison for 15 years. He doesn’t get a vote on funding allocation for the Exoneration Fun to pay his $750,000 judgment. No, it’s not fair. He lost 15 years of his life and “Oops, sorry” doesn’t do much to help.
There is an obvious answer, that the state needs to allocate money to pay off these judgments. And if there isn’t enough loose change under the cushions on the couch, then it has to tax its residents for it. And many of it’s residents aren’t doing all that great, and dont really want to give up any more of its money to the state, particularly when they won’t get a new road or better services for it. This is money flushed down the toilet, as far as residents are concerned. It’s not that they don’t approve of compensating the wrongfully convicted, as a concept, but once the judgments are paid, there isn’t much bang for the buck.
It’s easy to say that the state did wrong, owes the money and has to find some way to pay it. But the money has to come from somewhere. Cut police salaries and pensions? The unions won’t take it lightly. Stop wasteful spending? Should that be the case anyway, but there’s always an excuse for it. They could reallocate priorities, putting money earmarked for something else toward paying off at least part of the judgments, but there will still be some function unfunded, and someone to complain about their deprivation.
Ultimately, money always comes from the taxpayers, as that’s how governments get funding to do the things we do together. Like imprison innocent people. They could stop imprisoning people for ever-longer sentences, but that would require a fundamental change of mindset about punishment, and would at best eliminate only part of the problem. Could they stop convicting innocent people?
Even when there’s no impropriety, the system isn’t good enough to stop getting it wrong. And the guys who were exonerated need to eat today, not when budget allocation time rolls around.
When The Fisc Runs Dry curated from Simple Justice
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