Post by happyhaddock on Aug 4, 2007 12:34:52 GMT -5
Compensating the Wrongly Convicted <<< LINK
Vincent Moto was walking on a Philadelphia sidewalk with his girlfriend and baby son one day in May 1985. He was 22, working as a sales representative for a company selling granola bars, taking a business course, and playing drums in a rock and roll band.
The idea that he'd be going to jail was about as likely as a plane falling from the sky, he said. But that was the day a passing woman identified him as the man who had raped her five months earlier.
.
.
.
Moto had requested DNA testing as early as 1987, after his mother sent him a newspaper article she had clipped. It was not until 1995 that a test was carried out on the victim's underwear. It showed that he was not her attacker.
But Moto is not eligible for any reparation for his years in prison. He was wrongfully convicted in Pennsylvania, one of 28 American states without a law entitling the exonerated to claim compensation. Two bills that would create a right to compensation have died in committee at the state legislature; a third is stalled there now. Another bill that would expunge wrongful convictions has had as little success.
In the states that do make reparations to the wrongly imprisoned, compensation varies wildly. In some, exonerated prisoners receive a fixed award for each year spent inside: $36,500 in California, $5,000 in Wisconsin, $50,000 in Alabama, $15,000 in Louisiana. A former prisoner in Tennessee can claim up to $1 million; in New Hampshire claims are capped at $20,000.
Some states, such as New Jersey, fix the amount according to lost income, others include this money as an additional payment to compensation already given. Several states offer other benefits, such as free health care, counseling, and tuition -- though in Montana, that is all the wrongfully convicted can expect to receive.
Moto and his family could use the benefits. Despite the associate's degree he earned in prison, he has only worked casually since he got out. Employers recoil when he tries to explain his conviction, he said. He has been diagnosed with acute depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and receives a disability payment.
His parents spent their retirement fund on lawyers to fight for his release. Now in their 70s, both are still working. He's managed to build a "pretty good" relationship with his son, but it's been hard to bond with an older daughter. "I can't go back in time and be there for her," he said.
James Tillman, who spent 18 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, made headlines earlier this year when the Connecticut state legislature agreed to award him $5 million. Lawmakers, who have not passed a general compensation law, said they were especially moved by his lack of bitterness.
But just a few weeks earlier, legislators in Florida rejected a $1.25 million award to Alan Crotzer, who had been exonerated after serving 24 years for rape, kidnapping and robbery.
"It's a crazy patchwork quilt," said Heather Weigand, director of new programs and services for the Life After Exoneration Program, a California-based non-profit which gave some support services to Moto before a lack of funds forced it to cut its eastern programs.
Two years after his 2002 pardon, Gary Gauger received $61,000 for the three years he spent in an Illinois jail after being wrongfully convicted of his parents' murder. A large portion of the money went towards legal bills from his first trial, but he was able to invest a small amount in an organic vegetables business he set up on his family's farm. "It was nice because when I got out of prison I had no money, no work," he said.
Gauger said that among the exonerated, he has been fortunate. "I've been lucky because [when I left prison] I had a support group, and I was able to move back into my parents' house with my sister and her husband. At least I had a place to live and somewhere to go."
Unlike their guilty fellow inmates who enter the parole system upon completion of their sentences, the exonerated are simply released back in to the world they left years before, without any support.
.
.
.
Vincent Moto was walking on a Philadelphia sidewalk with his girlfriend and baby son one day in May 1985. He was 22, working as a sales representative for a company selling granola bars, taking a business course, and playing drums in a rock and roll band.
The idea that he'd be going to jail was about as likely as a plane falling from the sky, he said. But that was the day a passing woman identified him as the man who had raped her five months earlier.
.
.
.
Moto had requested DNA testing as early as 1987, after his mother sent him a newspaper article she had clipped. It was not until 1995 that a test was carried out on the victim's underwear. It showed that he was not her attacker.
But Moto is not eligible for any reparation for his years in prison. He was wrongfully convicted in Pennsylvania, one of 28 American states without a law entitling the exonerated to claim compensation. Two bills that would create a right to compensation have died in committee at the state legislature; a third is stalled there now. Another bill that would expunge wrongful convictions has had as little success.
In the states that do make reparations to the wrongly imprisoned, compensation varies wildly. In some, exonerated prisoners receive a fixed award for each year spent inside: $36,500 in California, $5,000 in Wisconsin, $50,000 in Alabama, $15,000 in Louisiana. A former prisoner in Tennessee can claim up to $1 million; in New Hampshire claims are capped at $20,000.
Some states, such as New Jersey, fix the amount according to lost income, others include this money as an additional payment to compensation already given. Several states offer other benefits, such as free health care, counseling, and tuition -- though in Montana, that is all the wrongfully convicted can expect to receive.
Moto and his family could use the benefits. Despite the associate's degree he earned in prison, he has only worked casually since he got out. Employers recoil when he tries to explain his conviction, he said. He has been diagnosed with acute depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and receives a disability payment.
His parents spent their retirement fund on lawyers to fight for his release. Now in their 70s, both are still working. He's managed to build a "pretty good" relationship with his son, but it's been hard to bond with an older daughter. "I can't go back in time and be there for her," he said.
James Tillman, who spent 18 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, made headlines earlier this year when the Connecticut state legislature agreed to award him $5 million. Lawmakers, who have not passed a general compensation law, said they were especially moved by his lack of bitterness.
But just a few weeks earlier, legislators in Florida rejected a $1.25 million award to Alan Crotzer, who had been exonerated after serving 24 years for rape, kidnapping and robbery.
"It's a crazy patchwork quilt," said Heather Weigand, director of new programs and services for the Life After Exoneration Program, a California-based non-profit which gave some support services to Moto before a lack of funds forced it to cut its eastern programs.
Two years after his 2002 pardon, Gary Gauger received $61,000 for the three years he spent in an Illinois jail after being wrongfully convicted of his parents' murder. A large portion of the money went towards legal bills from his first trial, but he was able to invest a small amount in an organic vegetables business he set up on his family's farm. "It was nice because when I got out of prison I had no money, no work," he said.
Gauger said that among the exonerated, he has been fortunate. "I've been lucky because [when I left prison] I had a support group, and I was able to move back into my parents' house with my sister and her husband. At least I had a place to live and somewhere to go."
Unlike their guilty fellow inmates who enter the parole system upon completion of their sentences, the exonerated are simply released back in to the world they left years before, without any support.
.
.
.