The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Maryland offers about $9M to 5 wrongly convicted men
One man, locked up for 39 years, due to receive $3 million.
Maryland is offering about $9 million in compensation to five wrongly convicted men, including about $3 million — the largest-ever such settlement paid by the state — to a man who spent 39 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
The settlement offer, confirmed by two of the exonerees’ attorneys, amounts to $78,916 for each year of wrongful incarceration. It could be voted on by the state Board of Public Works at its meeting on Wednesday.
A vote would be the first time in 15 years that the state has approved compensation to exonerees seeking redress, and the end of a protracted journey for the men, who served a collective 120 years in prison and have waited as long as 20 months for the state to respond to their petitions.
“We’re very pleased that the board has moved to get this underway and to get it wrapped up,” said Kristen Lloyd, an attorney for Hubert James Williams, who served 11 years for an attempted murder.
Williams, who is being treated for drug addiction and has frequently been homeless since his release, signed papers to accept the offer on Friday, Lloyd said, while “crying happy tears.”
“This is a huge development for James,” she said. “It means life or death for him. It means he won’t be living on the streets, and he can get the help that he has desperately needed.”
Republican Gov. Larry Hogan said two weeks ago that the state would decide by the end of the month how much to offer Williams, Lamar Johnson, Jerome Johnson, Walter Lomax, and Clarence Shipley Jr. The men asked for $12 million, or roughly $100,000 a year of incarceration, and have been in negotiations with the state over the past couple of weeks.
The settlement being offered covers money for each year the men served after sentencing, not their pre-trial detention.
Lamar Johnson has also agreed to the settlement, he and his attorney, Geoffrey Derrick, said. Lomax referred calls to his attorney, who could not be reached. The attorney representing Jerome Johnson and Shipley declined to comment.
A spokesman for Hogan did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Hogan’s decision to compensate the men came after weeks of pressure from Comptroller Peter Franchot and Treasurer Nancy Kopp, both Democrats — who serve with him on the Board of Public Works — as well as dozens of state lawmakers, including new House Speaker Adrienne Jones, D-Baltimore County.
Franchot and Kopp argued that the men should not have to wait any longer to be compensated. But neither pushed the issue to the board agenda.
Hogan initially said the panel was not equipped to respond to the requests and asked Maryland’s chief administrative law judge to work with the board’s general counsel to put in place a procedure for compensating the men and future exonerees.
The governor was later told that creating a procedure was “complicated” and would take more time than he was willing to wait. He then instructed the general counsel to work on a settlement offer.
Maryland has paid a total of $3 million to seven exonerees since the General Assembly passed a law allowing such compensation in 1963, according to a Board of Public Works official.
Prior to Lomax’s award, the largest award was $1.4 million, paid over 10 years, to Michael Austin. That settlement, approved by the Board of Public Works in 2004, was equivalent to $194 per day in today’s dollars, or $70,810 per year Austin was incarcerated.
Maryland has paid a total of $3 million to seven exonerees since the General Assembly passed a law allowing such compensation in 1963, according to a Board of Public Works official.