by Bob Walsh
Usually when somebody tells you it's not about the money, it's the principle of the thing, they are lying. But not always.
Gretchen Whitmer is the Governor of Michigan. She just vetoed a bill that would have kicked down $10 million to wrongfully imprisoned inmates. Michigan law is pretty clear on this, a wrongfully imprisoned person gets $50k per year. The inmate makes his or her claim via lawsuit in the MIchigan Court of Claims. Sometimes, in really egregious cases, the state will pay without the lawsuit. However, that has not happened recently due to lack of funding. The nation's longest serving exonerated person is Richard Phillips from Michigan, who did 45 years for an armed robbery and murder that he did in fact not commit.
Governor Whitmer says she vetoed the funding bill because it was tucked into a piece of policy legislation and was not part of an actual appropriations bill. Her political opponents assert that she is being unpleasant because she wants to push other stuff thru on the coattails of an appropriations bill to continue funding of this program.
It should be noted that Whtimer supported the original policy bill and signed it. The veto of the $10 million was a line-item veto.
The compensation fund was created in 2016 and has been funded to the tune of $6.5 million. The balance is now a bit over $300k. They are facing about $24 million in 39 pending cases.
2 comments:
Let's see they have 300k and have claims for 24 million? It's about the money.
Unless it can be proven that there was corruption or extreme incompetence by a public official which resulted in a conviction, I can't see large payouts for a wrongful conviction. Our justice system, though not perfect, is the best the world has ever seen.
Some form of compensation, perhaps. A civil suit against a corrupt perpetrator, you bet. But big payouts at the cost of taxpayers...not so much.
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