A community meeting is planned Wednesday, Aug. 29, on the conviction integrity unit, with information also on the Kansas law on compensation for the wrongfully convicted.
The meeting will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Aug. 29 at the Beatrice Lee Community Center, formerly the John F. Kennedy Recreation Center, 1210 N. 10th St., Kansas City, Kansas. It is open to the public.
The meeting is presented by the Emmett Till Justice Campaign, and the meeting’s host is Unity with a Purpose.
Alvin Sykes, president of the Emmett Till Justice Campaign, said guest speakers at the meeting will be Lamonte McIntyre, who was freed last year after serving decades in prison on a wrongful conviction; Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree, discussing the conviction integrity unit; Sean O’Brien, a University of Missouri at Kansas City law professor, discussing the issues at the national level; state Sen. David Haley, D-4th Dist., who was instrumental in getting state laws passed; Sykes; and Cardelia Walker, from Unity with Purpose.
The meeting is planned the night before the Unified Government Commission is scheduled to vote on the funding for the Wyandotte County conviction integrity unit, a program that is proposed by the district attorney.
Sykes said he did not view the UG Commission’s recent action in putting the CIU funding into a special fund controlled by the UG administrator as a negative action. The UG Commission is expected to vote to whether to put the funding under the control of the district attorney on Aug. 30.
The CIU funding had been challenged by a letter from the police chief, sheriff and FOP leaders to the Kansas attorney general, asking him to review the program, the state law and the individual cases that go through the CIU. The attorney general responded recently with a letter basically saying that his interpretation of state laws is that the local cases should be handled at the local level by the district attorney. He did not see a role for the attorney general’s office, unless it was asked to participate by the district attorney, although there were some exceptions mentioned in his letter.
Sykes said the UG mayor and commission, by taking the action they did recently at the budget meeting, created leadership on this issue.
In the old days a local government might have pulled the funding from the budget, passed the rest of the budget and waited to resolve the issue, he said. Once the issue was resolved, it would have been too late for the budget, and the program would have had to be delayed until the next year, he said.
But instead of doing that, the commission and UG administration showed their approval of it, and put the funding where it could be retrieved, Sykes said.
“Everybody knew the AG would come back and say he didn’t have jurisdiction,” Sykes said.
Sykes said he believes the timing was important on this issue because of the recent Kansas legislation passed on compensation for wrongfully convicted persons. Those who were convicted before July 1, 2018, imprisoned, then the charges were later dropped, would have two years from July 1, 2018, to file their case and prove their innocence in order to received compensation under this law, according to Sykes.
He added he did not expect there to be an avalanche of cases for compensation, because the individuals have to prove their innocence. Those who got off on a technicality would not qualify for compensation under the state law, he believes.
While individuals may hire their own attorneys for these compensation cases without going through the conviction integrity unit, he said he expected the CIU to be helpful to some of these cases. That is because requests for information from defense attorneys are often met with resistance and delays, he said, while the district attorney’s office has easier access to the records of past cases.
A private attorney would be necessary to take the cases to court through the compensation process, he added.
In their letter to the attorney general, the local law enforcement authorities stated they were concerned that there would be an unchecked power by the district attorney in these cases. They wanted some checks-and-balances in the process.
The letter from local law enforcement to the AG stated the unit is a “clear deviation from the criminal justice system’s handling of manifest injustice claims under KSA 60-1507 and additionally a deviation in how other active Conviction Integrity Units select cases.” The letter said defendants already had a way to address wrongful convictions under state law. The letter also pointed out the program could be expensive. It asked for the AG’s oversight of the local program.
Sykes said the district attorney will not have an unchecked power in these cases, that they will follow the state law on the processes that are required. The cases will have to go to court, so a judge would have to approve them, he added. Less than 20 cases out of 200 requests were identified as possible cases that could go through the conviction integrity unit, according to Sykes.
While the local law enforcement officials cited victims as one of their main concerns, Sykes said, “Nothing is for the benefit of the victims except truth and justice.”
He said it is important to look into cases where there has been a miscarriage of justice, because it is possible that a suspect is still out there.
“The most important thing is finding the right person,” Sykes said. “If you ain’t got the right one, the right one’s still out there.”
Sykes also said he was told by the police chief that the letter from the attorney general was positive because it underscored the requirement to view the cases under the state law, and that satisfied his concerns. However, Sykes said that was what the district attorney was planning to do from the start.
Sykes also said most of the wrongful convictions come about not because officers are intending to get the wrong person convicted, but because of faulty eyewitness identification. A few years ago, a law was passed in Kansas to change the eyewitness identification process that may prevent some wrongful convictions in the future, he said.
Also, sometimes the dynamics of an old case may change over the years, Sykes said. For example, as the years go by, a suspect may become divorced and a spouse may be willing to testify, he added.
He also said he was hoping that the local law enforcement authorities will work together with the district attorney on the conviction integrity unit. It is more than just sitting down and talking, Sykes said, it will involve listening to the other side. The two sides will need to look at it from each other’s perspective and then decide to help each other, he said.
People are used to thinking of the district attorney’s office as prosecutors, but the description of the office also says that the district attorney is to handle post-conviction litigation at the trial level, including cases where there might have been a miscarriage of justice.
Sykes said he is also trying to get federal funding to pay for conviction integrity units across the country. A federal conviction integrity act is the next federal legislative initiative for the Emmett Till Justice Campaign, he said. His idea is to have a CIU in U.S. attorney offices across the country, and federal funds in the form of grants to be available to local district attorneys who want to establish or maintain CIUs in their areas.
In a Unified Government news release last week, Mayor David Alvey stated that the attorney general’s response has come and the district attorney is within his rights to use these funds to address cases that fall under the state law (K.S.A. 60-1507). “It is vital that our publicly elected Commission take the time to fully review all expenditures of taxpayer dollars. I believe that responsibility has been met and I plan to place this on the August 30th agenda. If approved, the funds will be released this fall as part of the normal fiscal allocations,” Mayor Alvey said in the news release.
Other stories about this issue are online at:
https://wyandotteonline.com/das-conviction-integrity-unit-to-come-before-ug-commission-aug-30/
https://wyandotteonline.com/national-pressure-brought-to-bear-upon-ug-on-das-conviction-integrity-unit-issue/
https://wyandotteonline.com/ug-passes-budget-with-2-mill-city-decrease-das-ciu-funds-tied-up/
https://wyandotteonline.com/district-attorney-responds-on-conviction-integrity-unit-issue/
https://wyandotteonline.com/da-wont-be-able-to-spend-funds-for-new-conviction-and-integrity-unit-yet/
https://wyandotteonline.com/da-explains-1-million-estimated-costs-for-schlitterbahn-prosecution/
A UG meeting where this issue was discussed is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yydcLxwyjIo.
The July 19 UG meeting where the CIU was discussed is athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siZ7517LY2E.
For information about the Midwest Innocent Project, visit http://themip.org/.
