KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Galvanized by Kevin Strickland's release last month after serving Missouri's longest known wrongful imprisonment, lawmakers are proposing to expand state compensation to the exonerated, but some disagree on how far to take the potential changes.
The proposals are mostly being pushed by Democrats in the Republican-dominated legislature and vary in what benefits would be provided to prisoners freed after proving innocence. Ahead of the legislative session, some lawmakers expressed concern that an expansion of the compensation program would find little purchase among Republicans hesitant to spend state dollars.
"Does everybody and their mother agree that we should compensate people that are wrongly incarcerated after they get out? Absolutely," said Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, a Democrat who sponsored the law that allowed Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker to seek to free Strickland. "Can everyone agree on what that looks like? We'll find out."
Missouri has a compensation law, unlike about a dozen other states, but it's so narrow that most exonerees never see a dime. Only prisoners who prove their innocence through a DNA testing statute are entitled to money. Most are not freed that way.
Fifty-one people have been exonerated in Missouri, including defendants acquitted at retrials and prisoners declared actually innocent. At least 15 were freed with the assistance of DNA. Some of them were not compensated.
A bill that appears to have some bipartisan support is one introduced by Rep. Mark Sharp, a Democrat, that would expand eligibility for payments to those exonerated outside of DNA. It would not apply retroactively; he does not believe a retroactive law "will be received" by Republicans.
Under the current law, the few eligible exonerees are entitled to $100 for each day they were wrongly imprisoned, which legal experts say is less than what other states pay. The federal standard for compensation is $50,000 for each year of imprisonment. The majority of states with a compensation law, including Indiana and Alabama, provide that or more. Texas' is $80,000 a year.
Missouri also caps the payments at $36,500 a year, so if a person was imprisoned for 10 years and proved their innocence through the DNA statute, the $365,000 they are owed would be spread out over 10 years. That's a problem, innocence advocates previously told The Kansas City Star, because the state does not pay interest and because payments are terminated upon the exoneree's death.
Rep. LaKeySha Bosley, a Democrat, wants greater extensions of the compensation law to address those gaps. A bill she filed would apply retroactively to exonerees like Strickland.
It mirrors the benefits in Kansas, where lawmakers in 2018 passed what the Innocence Project has called one of the strongest compensation laws in the U.S. Bosley wants to increase Missouri's payments to $65,000 a year, matching Kansas, to allow compensation to all exonerees and assist them in finding housing, among other things. It would also allow for exonerees to attend 120 hours at any Missouri college.
"This is a way ... to say, 'Hey, you created an error, you have to pay for it, you have to fix it,'" she said, calling compensation a way to right a wrong. "Any time you break something, you have to buy it."
Sharp said he's aware of the more expansive proposals. But he called his bill "a step in the right direction" for which he said some Republican colleagues have expressed support. It's not clear how much a retroactive proposal would cost the state, but advocates have floated figures above $20 million.
"Don't get me wrong, it does have a lot of restrictions," Sharp said of his bill. "But I do think keeping it really restricted gives us our best path to get it done, realistically. ... We have to be strategic in how we get things done down there."
Sharp has discussed his proposal with House Budget Chair Cody Smith, a Republican, who said he's supportive of wrongful conviction compensation but is still learning the details.
"If there's a wrongful conviction that's the fault of the state, there should be some liability there," Smith said. "As with any request or any proposed new expense for the state budget, I have to weigh it within the totality of the other expenses and revenues and the larger picture."
One top Republican in the House Judiciary Committee, where the issues are likely to be heard, also said he supports expanding eligibility beyond DNA cases.
The committee's vice-chair, Rep. Rudy Veit, a Republican, said there should be compensation for former prisoners where "it's clearly shown by the overwhelming evidence that he was wrongfully convicted."
Veit said he's not familiar with other proposals to increase payments, but that he's open to the discussion.
Bosley's bill would allow an exoneree's next of kin to claim benefits if they die. That occurred recently in Kansas: the state awarded about $826,300 to the estate of Olin "Pete" Coones, who died 108 days after he was freed following 12 years in prison for a crime he did not commit in Kansas City, Kansas.
Bosley has pushed for broadening the statute for three years and said she has gotten favorable feedback from lawmakers of both parties.
Rep. Patty Lewis, a Democrat, supports Bosley's bill. She said was not aware until about a month ago of "the gap" in the statute that makes it so only exonerees freed through DNA can receive payments.
Lewis said there is bipartisan support and noted that lawmakers on both side of the aisle urged Missouri Gov. Mike Parson to pardon Strickland after prosecutors declared he was "factually innocent" in the 1978 triple murder that kept him behind bars for 43 years.
Parson did not pardon him. After Strickland was exonerated, Lewis said, Parson "patted himself on the back" for signing the law that allowed prosecutors to seek Strickland's exoneration in court.
"Something that I would like to see is, what is the governor's opinion in this bill?" she said.
Parson's office did not respond to a request for comment.
As of Thursday, an online fundraiser set up for Strickland, 62, had raised more than $1.7 million. That's around $41,000 for each year he spent behind bars, donated by at least 31,000 people.
The highest donation, $15,000, was made anonymously. Four people, including a Kansas City doctor who was born the same year Strickland was sent to prison, have given $10,000.
Strickland recently told The Star he appreciated the donations. But, he said, "it's a shame I have to resort to that."
Had he been wrongly convicted in Kansas, just four miles west of the 1978 shooting, he would have been eligible for $2.7 million in compensation.
Most Missouri exonerees have not gotten the same kind of attention as Strickland.
In an interview on KCUR's Up To Date, Ricky Kidd — a Kansas City man who spent 23 years in prison for a double murder he did not commit — said his fundraiser raised $24,000, which he described as a "drop in the bucket." He used the money for basic essentials.
"I wish my scenario was Kevin Strickland's to be honest," Kidd told the show.
Kidd and four other Missouri exonerees recently told The Star that while there are programs set up for guilty prisoners upon release, such as parole officers, the innocent are spit out of the system with nothing. Several are in dire financial situations. They have had to rely on nonprofit organizations and each other for help.
Democratic House Minority Leader Crystal Quade said she and colleagues are working on a bill that would provide similar basic services given to guilty prisoners upon release to the exonerated. She said she thinks Strickland's highly-publicized exoneration is opening people's eyes to "what is actually going on when it comes to our wrongly convicted."
"I think the public opinion and pressure around this conversation really allows for us to have this dialogue with folks on the other side of the aisle in a way that I think we can get somewhere with it," Quade said.
Through news reports, readers across the world learned of Missouri's narrow compensation law after Strickland's release.
Last week, the editorial board of The Washington Post said it should not take donations "to compensate people whom Missouri has done egregious wrong."
"Mr. Strickland's release should motivate state lawmakers to reform this heartless system," the newspaper wrote.
Days later, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's editorial board wrote that the need for such a fundraiser should "be a humiliation to every Missourian, and motivation to change that law."
Jackson County's prosecutor is among officials who have called for broadening compensation. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, Baker wrote last week of the fundraiser: "Where Missouri failed, the generosity of strangers prevailed."
