Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is right, but I belive they’re actually getting more than the maximum generally allowed for by this state for folks that have thier cases overturned after they serve jail/prison time.
I’m not positive, (I’ll go look it up as soon as I get the chance), but I believe 5k is the most the state will reimburse for wrongful imprisonment.
250k/38 works out to 6578.94 and some other change.
seems outrageous, the prison would get close to 50k for each one of them per year.
jails/prisons are big bidness in Texas, and probably elsewhere, in our “land of the free”
(a) A person who meets the requirements of Section 103.001 is entitled to compensation in an amount equal to:
(1) $25,000 multiplied by the number of years served in prison, expressed as a fraction to reflect partial years, if the time served is less than 20 years; or
(2) $500,000 if the time served is 20 years or more.
(b) A person who is owed an amount of compensation equal to or greater than $50,000 shall be paid in two equal annual installments.
well, maybe I’m premature in saying this, but it sure looks to me as if:
1:(at least the 14 still locked up, more than that all told though) have served part of a sentence in prison under the laws of texas
2:
A:while not a full pardon, an overturning of ALL the cases, should(not will, I never said will.) result in a least some pardons.
B:I honestly don’t know how to read this one, I don’t know what they mean by relief. Is it release from prison? or relief as in monetary awards?
b:as far as I know, none of them were serving sentences for anything else, but none of the articles I’ve seen mention this.
Note:
I’m not a lawyer, or even moderately trained in law, so I may be talking completely out of my ass.
There is no excuse for this incident and I would never condone it but this is NOT typical Texas law enforcement. The key is " Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force". This is a Federal-State funded “Task Force” that has dozens of “Colemans”. (Yes, TitoBenito,there’s one in Austin.) Perjury and evidence tampering are common with this bunch. The DEA busted one of their “poster children” with more than a ton of cocaine in a county owned horsetrailer a few years back. I hear they’re being disbanded because of “budget” concerns. I wonder how many more “Tulias” got swept under the carpet.
These strike me as the controlling phrases: “full pardon on the basis of innocence” and “basis of actual innocence”. Based on what I’ve read in the paper, it appears that their cases are being looked at from the standpoint of insufficient evidence. It doesn’t seem to me that anyone is trying to prove that they are actually innocent, instead it seems that they are trying to show that they couldn’t have been convicted with the evidence available. But, it’s not easy to tell this just from the newspaper accounts of it.