Mass. bills aim to help wrongfully convicted
When Dennis Maher was released from prison in 2003 after spending more than 19 years incarcerated for a crime he was innocent of, he didn’t know how to work a smart phone or log into the internet from a home computer.
Maher, 63, said he didn’t know how to talk with people and was surprised to learn that his license had been suspended due to a decades-old speeding ticket he had failed to pay.
Just learning how to function in society was a learning process for the diesel mechanic, who had been serving in the U.S. military at the time of his arrest and conviction on rape charges.
A trio of bills aimed at offering immediate financial assistance, social and educational services to exonerated people who were convicted of crimes and imprisoned wrongfully, as well as lifting the $1 million cap for restitution, were the subject of a rally to celebrate Wrongful Conviction Day Monday in the Massachusetts Statehouse. The bills are currently before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary.
The bills, filed by Sen. Patricia Jehlen, D-Somerville, with companion House bills filed by Rep. Christopher Worrell, D-Boston, are supported by the New England Innocence Project and formerly incarcerated Massachusetts residents.
Jehlen said she has been working with the Innocence Project for years and is seeking to ensure the wrongfully convicted can find their way to a productive life. She said the organization and its work touches her deeply.
One measure would immediately pay victims of erroneous felony convictions a $5,000 stipend upon their release from incarceration. That first stipend could help ease their transition into modern society. The bills would also clarify which social services and aid programs they could access to address their physical, social and emotional needs including financial literacy training. The bill also would waive tuition and fees at the state’s public colleges and universities including the flagship UMass Amherst and its satellite campuses.
Records pertaining to wrongful conviction could be sealed
Victims could also request their records be expunged or sealed to protect their privacy. The option could be provided for those people who can prove their innocence, even if their convictions were vacated on other grounds.
Maher, who was arrested and charged with a series of sexual assaults that occurred in 1984 – two in Lowell and one in Ayer – was convicted based on circumstantial evidence including clothing and eyewitness identification by the victims. However DNA evidence that could have exonerated him, although available in at least one of the attacks, was not introduced at trial.
In 1993, Maher wrote to the national Innocence Project, which tried to access the biological evidence from his trials. His case was transferred to the New England organization and languished until a law student found two boxes of evidence from the Lowell case in the basement of the Middlesex County Courthouse. Included in the boxes was clothing from one of the victims. The items were sent to the Forensic Science Associates for testing. The results were exculpatory. Maher, who speaks at colleges, universities and at high schools, was released April 3, 2003. He believes the bills and the immediate stipend could have helped him and others ease into society.
“These bills would allow people to get along with their lives, do something with their lives, instead of being stagnant,” Maher said.