Should Michigan Pay $60,000-A-Year To Those Wrongfully Imprisoned? Bills Pass Committee

LANSING (WWJ) - Legislation that would dictate the state pay a considerable amount of cash to innocent people who were wrongfully imprisoned is moving ahead in Lansing.

The package of bills, which passed the House Criminal Justice Committee on Tuesday, calls for exonerated individuals to get $60,000 for each year they were behind bars and receive additional funds to cover economic damages such as lost wages, attorney fees and medical expenses after release that are related to time served.

WWJ Lansing Bureau Chief Tim Skubick says the legislation has bi-partisan support.

"All the Democrats and all the Republicans on this House committee have said yes, this is the right thing to do, it's the fair thing to do," Skubick reported. "If you go to the slammer and they find out later you're innocent, the state ought to do something to pay you for those years behind bars."

Senator Steve Bieda, D-Warren, who sponsored the bills, said the cost to the state would be about $15 million in the first year, but less in future years.

He said he's had some discussions with the Gov. Rick's Snyder office about the proposed program, which, he said, is needed.

"When you think about the number of people that are convicted every year, actually the number of exonerees is very, very, very small," Bieda said. "But just like every other type of thing, nothing's a hundred percent perfect, and our criminal justice system  — as good as it is — sometimes something goes wrong. And this is just to take care of those situations where something went wrong."

Anyone wrongly convicted and imprisoned would have to bring a complaint against the state to receive reimbursement.

Why $60,000-a-year?

"It's tough to put a value on someone's life," said the bills' co-sponsor, State Rep. Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit). "I think the goal here is really trying to make sure that we're compensating people for the years that they spent in prison that, you know, have then created the hardships that were mentioned before, such as finding housing, finding a job."

Macomb County resident Kenneth Wyniemko, who spent nearly ten years in prison after he was wrongly convicted, said there are flaws in the justice system.

"A system is only as good as the people that are in it," Wyniemko said, testifying at Tuesday's committee hearing. "If you have bad people in a system, or dishonest people, it's not gonna work."

In the past 25 years, 55 people have been released from prison in Michigan after being exonerated from previous convictions.

The federal government and 30 other states provide compensation in some form for those who are wrongfully convicted and serve prison time.