Hearings to compensate people who were wrongfully convicted in Michigan began Wednesday.
Two of the four cases were thrown out. That’s because the statute requires new evidence be part of the reason the former inmate is exonerated.
The law that went into effect earlier this year lays out certain circumstances where a former inmate can receive compensation.
Marwin McHenry is one of the wrongfully convicted who’ll be compensated. He’ll get over 175-thousand dollars for the time he served in prison.
McHenry says he’s grateful for the money he got but –
“It’s never enough, no dollar amount is enough for the time. Really nothing can make up for the time that was lost.”
Democratic Senator Steve Bieda sponsored the bill. He says he worked on the legislation for twelve years.
“As Americans and as human beings we cherish the ideal of justice and we think that justice was done.”
Wolfgang Mueller is an attorney for a prisoner who was not compensated.
“This bill has so many holes with respect to insufficiency of evidence that you leave somebody who spent five years in prison out in the cold with no compensation. That is absolutely unjust.”
Mueller says he will file an appeal. A lawmaker who wrote the legislation says there had to be parameters for who could qualify for compensation.