by Mary Rupert
State Sen. David Haley, D-4th Dist., said Thursday that he would support a re-examination of the wrongful incarceration compensation law in the next legislative session following a delay in Lamonte McIntyre’s case.
McIntyre was released a few years ago from prison after 23 years of incarceration. He had been convicted in a 1994 homicide case, and the Midwest Innocence Project, attorneys and McIntyre said he was innocent.
McIntyre’s state compensation has been delayed while the attorney general’s office looks at a court action proving whether McIntyre was innocent. District Attorney Mark Dupree’s office, which has established a conviction integrity unit, previously investigated the case in 2017 after McIntyre made a request for a hearing.
“During the court proceeding, I agreed with McIntyre’s attorneys to admit over 100 exhibits, written testimony, sworn affidavits, and other exhibits into the official court record. I then moved the case be dismissed because of the manifest injustice that was shown and was clearly documented in the court record, and the judge agreed,” Dupree wrote in an open letter on Dec. 24.
AG: Record of prior judicial proceedings is ‘insufficient’
Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s spokesman, C.J. Grover, stated, “The mistaken conviction statute enacted by the Legislature provides for a court, not the attorney general, to determine whether a claimant meets the legal requirements to receive benefits. The role of the attorney general is to represent the State in these proceedings.
“The statute requires the claimant to carry the burden of proving several facts by a preponderance of the evidence,” Grover stated. “For some claims, the attorney general has been able to review records of prior judicial proceedings and determine that the claimant has satisfied the requirement for proof; when that has been possible the attorney general has joined with the claimant in asking the court to expedite approval of the claim without further fact-finding or trial.
“However, for other claims, including this one, the record of prior judicial proceedings is insufficient for the attorney general to make that determination without further factual development; for those claims, the process the Legislature created will need to proceed,” Grover stated. “Evaluating Mr. McIntyre’s mistaken conviction lawsuit is more time-consuming than other mistaken conviction lawsuits because the factual record in this case was not fully developed in the prior court that reviewed the criminal case, at least in part because the State cut the proceeding short. In other words, evaluating Mr. McIntyre’s mistaken-conviction case requires more work by the State at this stage to develop and test facts because that work was not previously completed.
“The case is currently in discovery, and we continue to review information as it is provided to us by the claimant or as we otherwise obtain it,” Grover stated. “The claimant’s counsel and the State have agreed upon a discovery timeline and have submitted to the Shawnee County District Court a proposed October 23, 2020, deadline to complete discovery.”
Sen. Haley: Intent of Legislature was not to re-litigate
Sen. Haley, who proposed the wrongful incarceration compensation bill in the Legislature, said Thursday that the intent of the Legislature when it passed the law in 2018 was not to create another process to determine whether a person was innocent, and not to have a re-litigation of the original case by a third party such as the attorney general or a federal court.
In order to receive compensation under the law, as explained by its supporters at the time it passed, the law required those who were wrongfully convicted to receive a certification that the person was innocent, not just a “not guilty” decision, and not just charges dismissed.
Sen. Haley, who is an attorney, said that simply meant the district attorney’s office would certify that the person was innocent. Retrying the case would be a manifest injustice, Sen. Haley said.
He noted that since the law passed, compensation has already been paid to a few other inmates in Kansas who were determined to be wrongfully incarcerated, and he asked why the McIntyre case, which was the signature case that motivated the legislation, should be delayed.
Sen. Haley said that he had not yet re-examined the language of the wrongful incarceration compensation law, but he plans to look at it again and fine-tune it next year if necessary. He said there was bipartisan support and support from moderates and conservatives for the compensation law.
On Thursday, Sen. Haley said Derek Schmidt, attorney general, was “out of his lane” to attempt to reinterpret the wrongful incarceration compensation law. He added the attorney general’s office was asked for input when the bill was being considered in the Legislature.
Sen. Haley also said that he is on a committee that has oversight of Schmidt’s budget, and that Sen. Haley could view the expenditures in the handling of the McIntyre case as a waste of money.
The wrongful incarceration compensation law (https://www.sos.ks.gov/pubs/sessionlaws/2018/2018_Session_Laws.pdf, Chapter 108, HB 2579, p. 1092) does refer to a claimant filing a suit for compensation, and a court hearing it. The law also had some deadlines in it – persons who were wrongfully convicted and released from custody before July 1, 2018, had until July 1, 2020, to start an action under this law.
Dupree issued an open letter Dec. 24 following a report that the compensation for McIntyre might be delayed for years as the attorney general’s office works on the case. Dupree pointed out in the letter that the criminal justice system was flawed, and stated his 2017 hearing on the McIntyre case found that there was manifest injustice in the case. To view the open letter, visit https://wyandotteonline.com/district-attorney-issues-open-letter-in-mcintyre-case/.
Kristiane Bryant, who is running for the Wyandotte County District Attorney position, stated, “I believe that protecting the rights of both victims and defendants should be the highest priority of a prosecutor. The justice system in our state needs to evolve and change to protect those rights and I applaud the Kansas Legislature for passing House Bill 2579 and creating a process for innocent persons wrongfully convicted to be compensated. Although money cannot correct the harm of a wrongful conviction, it can help an individual overcome some of the barriers faced when reentering society. That alone does not resolve the issues of fair and consistent treatment of those currently involved in the criminal justice system.
“It has been widely reported that Mr. McIntyre was found to be ‘actually innocent’ by the court pursuant to the District Attorney’s request, but the signed order simply grants a new trial on the basis of ‘manifest injustice.’ While Mr. McIntyre’s release from incarceration was likely the correct result, it appears the lack of a proper record in the case has caused Mr. McIntyre’s claim for compensation to be delayed pending an investigation by the Attorney General,” Bryant stated.
