Wayne County prosecutor seeks funding to address backlog of possible wrongful convictions
(CBS DETROIT) – To clear up a backlog of cases involving people who say they were wrongfully imprisoned, the Wayne County prosecutor is asking county leaders for help expanding her office's conviction integrity unit.
"Where's accountability from the justice system? I mean, there's no justice in the justice system," said exoneree Mark Craighead.
We recently introduced you to Mark Craighead, who was wrongfully imprisoned due to the alleged misconduct of former Detroit Detective Barbara Simon.
Simon is accused of lying about evidence and detaining suspects without a warrant to get false confessions.
Craighead is advocating for justice for those still behind bars.
"They have no other recourse of getting back into court. So they're doing they're doing natural life. They're doing their whole life for a false confession and false everything that she did; if we don't speak up now, they're in jail for the rest of their life," Craighead said.
Craighead has been pushing for a meeting with the prosecutor and police chief to discuss why these cases have yet to be re-examined.
At Thursday's Ways and Means committee meeting, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said it comes down to money.
"We've been heavily criticized for not commenting on that, and this is why, because I wanted to make sure that funding was approved by you, and then I'll be able to that'll give me the opportunity to hire somebody that can focus on those cases as well," Worthy told committee members.
Worthy says her conviction integrity unit has about one thousand backlogged cases.
"So we've gotten over a million dollars worth of grants for this unit, but none of the grants would allow us to pay for personnel," Worthy said.
Dave Moran, a University of Michigan Law School professor and former co-director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic, isn't surprised by Wayne County's struggle. In 15 years, his clinic received 7,000 requests from Michigan inmates, but only 1% were accepted.
"It's a big undertaking for us, and we had typically 20-25 law students working, spending half of their time for an entire year in law school, working up these cases. Most of the local conviction integrity units are very small affairs, just a lawyer or two, an investigator or two," Moran said.
He adds it is very expensive to put innocent people in prison, costing Michigan upwards of $35,000 a year per person.
"What we hope local governments could see is that the benefits of an improved criminal justice system far outweigh the short-term costs that are incurred to adequately fund a CIU," Moran said.