Posted on 09/06/2009 6:33:51 AM PDT by deport
Wrongly convicted Texans become instant millionaires
New law makes Texas most generous state for payments to cleared prisoners.
DALLAS — Thomas McGowan's journey from prison to prosperity is about to culminate in $1.8 million, and he knows just how to spend it: on a house with three bedrooms, stainless steel kitchen appliances and a washer and dryer.
"I'll let my girlfriend pick out the rest," said McGowan, who was exonerated last year based on DNA evidence after spending nearly 23 years in prison for rape and robbery.
He and other exonerees in Texas, which leads the nation in freeing the wrongly convicted, soon will become millionaires under a new state law that took effect this week.
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Exonerees will get $80,000 for each year they spent behind bars. The compensation also includes lifetime annuity payments that for most of the wrongly convicted are worth between $40,000 and $50,000 a year — making it by far the nation's most generous package.
McGowan and the others are among 38 DNA exonerees in Texas, according to the Innocence Project, a New York legal center that specializes in overturning wrongful convictions. Dallas County alone has 21 cases in which a judge overturned guilty verdicts based on DNA evidence, though prosecutors plan to retry one of those.
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That is apparently lost on people. Wrongful convictions are nothing new, but taking the time and resources to use newer technology to find those cases when possible, admitting the wrong, compensating the victim of that wrong as well as possible takes a different mindset than the usual "sweep it under the rug and call the record clean" mentality.
It is highly commendable that there is an effort to right injustice, and let the chips fall where they may.
It seems the conservative states are the ones most concerned with right and wrong.
OTOH, it beats the heck out of a cheap suit and a bus ticket.
Yet it is far better than the $25 and a bus ticket that they used to get.
I think it is a good amount.
Well gentlemen, ladies, whatever, some people will kill for $80k. A good number of that type would be happy spend a year in jail in exchange for $80k. The odds are they already have done time and know exactly what the trade offs are.
The bottom line is you don't create incentives to do such things.
Instead go after the prosecutors and/or district attorneys who create this situation in the first place.
And hopefully those aren't the ones getting out. If the process works as it should they will remain incarcerated. This program is in its infancy and those being exonerated have been incarcerated for several years. Are you saying these people should be kept in confinement if there is reasonable doubt/evidence to exonerate them?
As far as going after prosecutors/DAs I agree if they were in error and defense attorneys also if they are negilent in their defense.
A hardened ex-convict knows exactly what the trade offs are. Is it really so far fetched that these people won't try to game the system? They can go to prison, get free room and board, and five years later walk out with $400k in hand when the alternative is working for minimum wage and barely paying for your existence over that same five year period.
You don't create systems that create incentives for bad behavior.
At a minimum it should be by a case by case basis. Not some rule that applies to all cases.
And I do agree that people truly wrongly convicted, especially if for a long period time deserve to be well compensated - which really isn't possible considering what they lost. The prosecutors/district attorneys need to have some major responsibility here - again on a case by case basis.
Absolutely not.
My point is entirely different.
I'm saying that some ex-convicts could well try to game the system. To create a situation from this point forward where they get themselves convicted of a crime on purpose all the while having hard proof they didn't do it. In other words, the whole thing is staged. So that at a later date that hard proof will mysteriously appear proving they were wrongfully convicted.
The ex-convict stays in prison for 5 years and walks out the door with $400k. An opportunity that may well be far better than any other they have in their life.
I’m saying that some ex-convicts could well try to game the system.
Yep some may try. That just means the states and DAs/prosecution needs to be ever mindful of suddenly appearing proof of innocence. But that doesn’t delete the need to try and free those wrongly incarcerated with some type compensation for the erroneous incarceration.
Then make the law only apply to wrongful convictions prior to the law being enacted. Don’t create a future situation ripe to be gamed.
And where is the incentive for the prosecutors not to wrongfully convict in all this?
Prosecutors are the primary source of the problem. Let them have some accountability and future problems of this sort will be reduced.
“That just means the states and DAs/prosecution needs to be ever mindful of suddenly appearing proof of innocence.”
It is the same DAs/prosecution that is wrongfully convicting people. The problem begins there to start with.
Well you can’t have it both ways. Either you release people who are innocent with or without compensation or keep them incarcerated. It can’t be both. I’m for releasing innocent people with compensation as opposed to the other alternatives.
Do you thing in CA and Texas will proceed with theirs.
I think I remember reading about one of the people doing the DNA testing in Dallas. Some woman Director if I recall. She'd been tied to a lot of sloppy laboratory work, but I never heard what happened. Maybe this is part of it.
I am glad to see an equitable compensation for those wrongly imprisoned, though.
“Texas is a Third-World hellhole.”
And this from a Nanook of the North, People’s Republic of Minnesota FReeper?
Puhleease!
Not enough, but well deserved, IMO.
I voted for Coleman, Paulsen, and Palin/Whatshisname.
I'm just outnumbered by libs.
Besides, my wife and I *prefer* the cold weather.
Cheers!
Agree, this amount is a joke...A million a year for doing time in the joint would still not be enough.
...and I supposed Keith Ellison (as a Marxist) might fit in there somewhere as well...
Cheers!
Bump.
The article title is wrong too. 23 years in a Texas prison for something he didn't do is not becoming an "instant" millionaire. About the only thing wrong with this is I don't see any provision for spreading some pain on the officials who performed the wrongful conviction.
Besides, Texas is a great place and anyone with enough brains to accomplish something like that could easily do better with a real job and not have to spend any time in prison.
That's the only issue I have with this.
We want the guilty to be punished to the extent of the law. Punishing an innocent person accomplishes exactly nothing and is pretty much modern slavery.
In your hypothetical example, the prosecutors, judge & jury would be culpable.
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