Nothing. Zero dollars. Not a single penny.
If McIntyre, who went away at 17 and is now 41, had been wrongly convicted and released in Texas, he would have been eligible to receive $1.8 million — $80,000 by law for every year lost, not including a yearly compensation afterward. Colorado gives $70,000 for each year; Alabama $50,000.
Kansas, however, is one of 18 states that offer zero compensation for individuals who have been wrongly incarcerated and later exonerated.
“They don’t have to give him any money — or any services,” said Tricia Bushnell, director of the Midwest Innocence Project. Bushnell served as co-counsel last week to Kansas City attorney Cheryl Pilate’s eight-year effort to prove McIntyre’s innocent of a 1994 double homicide.
McIntyre was released on Friday, Oct. 13. A site to raise funds for his future was quickly established at www.razoo.com with a meager $5,000 goal. By Wednesday night, the goal stood at $12,500 and more than $11,500 had been raised.
>> Inmates escape jail to visit girlfriends, ‘smoke weed,’ sheriff says
In prison, McIntyre was trained to be a barber. He said he will try to become certified in that trade until he figures out his future.
“If he came out on probation or parole, they (the state) would have to provide him services in finding housing, education, getting his ID,” Bushnell said. “They don’t have to give him anything. And, in fact, they haven’t.”
Missouri does offer exonerated individuals compensation — $50 per day of wrongful incarceration — but the law also is narrow. It only provides compensation to individuals proven innocent by DNA evidence. Only 22 percent of exonerations involve DNA, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.
In both 2016 and 2017, separate bills were introduced to the Kansas legislature to compensate exonerees for wrongful incarceration. Both died.
In 2016, House Bill 2611 set compensation at the $7.25 federal minimum wage multiplied by 2,080 for each year of wrongful incarceration. That amounts to $15,080 a year; for McIntyre, it would have led to an award of close to $350,000.
Senate Bill 125 set compensation similar to the Texas law — $80,000 for each year of wrongful incarceration, plus attorney and other fees.
In February, exoneree Floyd Bledsoe of Oskaloosa, Kan., testified in favor of the bill in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Bledsoe had spent 16 years in prison for a murder that his brother would ultimately confess to, prior to committing suicide.
>> Your bullying child could land you in jail under new anti-bullying law
“My dream was to be a beef farmer and I was well on my way with 40 acres of land and livestock,” Bledsoe said before the legislative committee. “That all changed on November 5, 1999. My wife’s 14-year-old sister went missing. My brother Tom confessed to killing her. He told our church pastor that he committed the crime, turned over the murder weapon, and led detectives to her body.
“Then he recanted and told police that I had admitted to the crime. Despite all the evidence that Tom was the perpetrator, police decided to charge me. I was tried and convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. … In November 2015, Tom confessed to the crime in a suicide note, and I was exonerated in December of that year.”
On the day he was released from prison, he had nothing but the clothes he wore.
“I had no money and no place to live,” Bledsoe said. “Before I went to prison, my grandmother had left me land to start my own farm. The land and my livestock had to be sold. As you can imagine, this entire ordeal tore my family apart, so I could not rely on them for assistance. When I applied for jobs, employers were nervous to hire someone who had been incarcerated, despite the fact that I was innocent. Had I actually been guilty I would have received more from the state. I would have been given $100 upon my release from prison, job training, and mentors to help me readjust to life outside of prison.
“Being innocent made me ineligible for any of these benefits.”
In her motion to exonerate McIntyre, Pilate raised serious questions regarding the misconduct of the lead detective in McIntyre’s case, Roger Golubski, as well as alleged misconduct on the part of the then-Wyandotte County prosecuting attorney, Terra Morehead and the judge, J. Dexter Burdette.
Burdette remains a sitting judge. Morehead has since become a federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas. Golubski retired from the Kansas City, Kan., police force in 2010 with the rank of captain.
McIntyre’s other legal option would be to sue state officials in federal court for possible violation of his civil rights under what is known as Code 1983. The code reads, in part, “Every person who … subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law.”
McIntyre could sue individuals including Golubski or the prosecutor Morehead as well the police department or the Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office.
About the Author