25 years in prison. $45 as compensation. NC is failing the wrongfully convicted

For nearly 25 years Howard Dudley sat in prison, wrongly incarcerated after only a 15-minute police investigation. This is not an exaggeration. Kinston Police investigators conducted only a single interview in the case. A more generous accounting would include collecting the report of the alleged crime, which would result in 40 minutes of total work for the officers whose investigation sent Mr. Dudley to prison for life.

In 2016, Mr. Dudley’s conviction was vacated and he was exonerated after new evidence demonstrated his innocence. Superior Court Judge W. Douglas Parsons said, “Our system of justice failed Mr. Dudley, period. And I simply cannot in good faith, as an officer of the Court, and upholding the dignity of the legal system of North Carolina, Superior Court Division, let these convictions stand.”

The justice system continues to fail Mr. Dudley. Despite his exoneration more than five years ago, he has received no compensation for his wrongful conviction beyond the $45 gate check all incarcerated people receive upon release. The reason is simple: to receive compensation from the state, he must first receive a pardon of innocence from the governor, an opaque, political process that has failed Mr. Dudley and others like him.

Even the five pardons the governor granted in December and his recent pardon of Darryl Howard highlight the failure of the current system. With the exception of Ronnie Long, all these men were exonerated for nearly five years before the governor pardoned them. During those years the state did nothing to help them regain their footing in society, nor did they know whether the governor would grant them a pardon, let alone when.

Mr. Dudley has been trying to piece together his place in society for the last five years without any help from the state. He was a healthy man when he entered prison, but because of injuries suffered in prison and his advancing age he was left physically unable to do the manual labor he did before his conviction.

The current circumstances are intolerable and the governor shows no interest in changing them. House Bill 877, a bill just introduced in the General Assembly, would change that. It provides an alternative, transparent route to the governor’s exclusive role as gatekeeper to determine who receives compensation after being wrongfully convicted and exonerated by a court. The governor could still trigger compensation with a pardon of innocence but, under the bill, a court could also trigger compensation with a finding that the overturned conviction was erroneous. Unlike the pardon of innocence, this new process would be governed by clear rules and ensure that compensation for people like Mr. Dudley occurs in a timely fashion, when it is most needed.

At least five other men who have had their convictions overturned by courts languish waiting for the governor to act. Most of these men’s names are not even on the governor’s Clemency Office website because the current administration has taken the position that clemency requests are not public records. Even if that were true under the law, it is bad policy; people have a right to know who is seeking clemency from the governor, whether they favor it for particular individuals or oppose it. The current opaqueness insulates the governor from criticism.

All these men deserve a pardon process free from politics. A fair process would evaluate cases on their merits, not their impact on the political fortunes of the governor. That is what HB 877 does. The General Assembly and the governor should make it law and provide a measure of fairness to these men who fought so hard to be free, only to be met with indifference on the other side.

James E. Coleman, Jr., and Jamie T. Lau are professors of law at Duke University School of Law. Coleman is co-director of the Duke Law Wrongful Convictions Clinic, which has secured the exonerations of ten wrongfully convicted men in North Carolina, and Lau is the clinic’s supervising attorney.