The Innocence Project is reporting that Robert Stinson is eligible for only $25,000 of compensation in Wisconsin after serving 23 years in prison for a crime that he did not commit. The outrageously low compensation is the result of a statutory compensation level that has not been changed since 1913.
The legislature in 1913 set $5000 a year for compensation — a figure that the IP notes would be $100,000 today if adjusted.
The Wisconsin Claims Board has agreed to ask for an additional $90,000. That would still, in my view, be remarkably low compensation for a man denied the best years of his life. If the state runs over a man with a state truck, he can recover hundreds of thousands in damages. However, if prosecutors and police wrongly deny a man a full life, he is given only $5000 a year?
Let’s do the math. With 23 years in jail, Stinson has a right for compensation for roughly 8395 days. At $25,000, he will receive $2.90 per day. Even at $100,000, that would amount to roughly $12 a day to sit in prison for the majority of his life.
IP reports that “[o]f the 27 states with compensation laws, Wisconsin’s compensation law has the second-lowest maximum dollar amount. New Hampshire caps compensation at $20,000.”
The result that there is little financial or political deterrent to unjust convictions. Part of the value of these awards is that the public takes note of these cases and asks for an accounting. Some prosecutors have been accused of exercising little discretion or judgment in weak cases — simply leaving it to jurors and minimizing their own role. This is not to disparage most police and prosecutors who work hard to “make the case” and do justice. However, putting aside the obvious obligation to pay someone for a wrong committed against them, the compensation for false convictions is one of the few deterrents in this area. It forces the public to internalize — and recognize — part of the cost of wrongful convictions.
Ione F. Cyshosz was found the morning after disappearing from a Bingo event. She had been beaten and her corpse showed bite marks on the torso. Stinson was arrested in the area after saying the teeth of the then-21-year-old matched the bite marks.
The conviction was heralded at the time as the first “bite mark” case to go to verdict in the state — a controversial basis for conviction that has been discredited in past cases. The conviction was secured by Dr. L. Thomas Johnson, a forensic odontologist and prosecutor (and now law professor) Daniel Blinka. Blinka, shown right, now teaches The Constitution and Criminal Investigations at Marquette Law School. Despite DNA evidence disproving bite mark evidence (which was the only direct evidence used for conviction), Blinka and Johnson insist that they still have no doubt about his guilt.
The prosecutors also insist that Stinson was given a fair trial and now have six-months to decide whether to recharge and retry Stinson.
Jonathan Turley
Hey Blouise and all of the others.
Blouise,
Just read your comments on an old thread that I hadn’t been visiting. I, too, am sorry and hope that things improve.
Blouise, OH NO, I’m sorry to hear that and my best wishes are with you.
http://www.wuwm.com/programs/news/view_news.php?articleid=7484
Police to Document Race and Ethnicty of Everyone Stopped
By LaToya Dennis
December 30, 2010 | WUWM | Milwaukee, WI
Starting January 1, police across Wisconsin will be required to document the race of every person they pull over. The goal is to determine whether law enforcement unfairly targets racial or ethnic groups for suspected offenses. Groups have long expressed concern about racial disparities within the state’s criminal justice system, but as WUWM’s LaToya Dennis reports, reaction is mixed on whether the new requirement will make a difference.
National studies have found that while African Americans make up less than 10 percent of Wisconsin’s population, they account for nearly half the people in prison. Ten years ago, a taskforce on racial profiling recommended that police document the race and ethnicity of everyone they stop, to learn whether officers may disproportionately look for wrongdoing among minorities. Now, a decade later, it’s happening. Primitivo Torres says it’s about time. He’s with Milwaukee-based group Voces De La Frontera. It and the local branch of the NAACP support the data collection.
“We don’t know exactly what kind of measuring stick this will be, but it basically gives you an idea who they’re stopping, who they’re going after. That way we have a balance. Not just focusing on any ethnic groups so we do see we do see maybe a positive in this,” Torres says.
Torres believes racial profiling is common, especially when it comes to Latinos. However Jeff Smidt is confident the data will prove that everyone who accuses officers of bias are wrong. Smidt is a captain with the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department.
“Officers are making stops based on probable cause that a crime has been committed or that a traffic violation has occurred. I know, especially on the night shift, it’s in our agency the nature of the roads that we’re patrolling, it’s uncommon for us to know the gender or race of the driver until we actually get up on the car,” Smidt says.
So I guess w Stinson they are looking at a section 1983 or 1985 lawsuit for conspiracy related to the investigation and witness testimony and maybe acts taken or not taken after he was convicted.
I looked up the Ted Bundy records and they said two of his teeth were unusual.
Did you know that there are problems w finger prints when fingers are short and small? I guess there just isn’t enough space for the patterns.
It looks like DOJ is trying to avoid taking prisoners finger prints on multiple occasions and I wonder if that is because they are having problems matching fingerprints that they themselves are taking. The DOJ website said they are supposed to rebook meaning take new fingerprints and update charges every time they change custody to make sure they have the right prisoner but then later they say that they use the same ABS record.
So did anyone in this critical group find any flaws in my liability against DOJ under 5 USC 552a e(7)+ g(4)?
Lotta,
I spoke too soon. Red lights flashing in my driveway on Weds. Coming home tomorrow and all is well … for now.
Bonnie: “Wasn’t Ted Bundy convicted on bite marks?”
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I believe you’re right on that, good catch.
Jonathan, you did an excellent commentary on the 360 program tonight about O’Donnell. Great job!!!
“Doing a fork gambit with one’s king is plausibly foolish.” (Harris) 🙂
“Yes, it is a way of giving the other player a choice of which of two pieces to lose.” (Harris)
… aha … that was all I needed and from my admission you should be able to glean that I was mistakenly looking at your example from only one point of view i.e. the player playing the Knight and failing to change viewpoints i.e the player with the choice as to which to lose. Interesting failure on my part and something for me to think about.
Regarding the “fork gambit,” it can be most readily be done with knights, not quite so readily withbishops, queens, and rooks, and less readily with pawns. Doing a fork gambit with one’s king is plausibly foolish.
Yes, it is a way of giving the other player a choice of which of two pieces to lose.
To illustrate, I mentioned not long ago the attorney to whom I was diligently listening but who, because my responses to what he told me were not what he expected, thought I was not listening to him. My goal was to learn whether I could demonstrate to him that I had been listening, both with great and diligent care. As in a chess endgame in which one player has and recognizes he is will win if he plays well, but chess can have surprises, I set out to give the attorney a sequence of two way (binary) choices.
I began with, to summarize, “I understand you believe I haven’t been listening to you.”
He could affirm or deny, it would not have mattered. I shall not go through the entire tree of questions and binary responses, but will explain what happened, also in summary.
He affirmed his belief.
I said, “We can test that.”
His binary choice was to reply or not, he did not.
I said, “I can tell you six ways what you have been saying to me.”
His choice was to let me proceed or so refuse. He let me proceed.
I told him the first way, the second way, and the third way, and then asked, “Is it clear to you from those three ways, or do you need the other three?”
I gave him the choice of finding the three acceptable or unacceptable. He accepted.
I then said, “Now, I am going to guess that you cannot tell me in even one way what I have been saying to you.”
I have him the choice to accept or reject my guess. He accepted it.
I said, “Then who has not been listening to whom?”
I have him the choice to accept or reject my question. He accepted, but not without being checkmated.
He said, “Most people cannot handle what you just did.”
Checkmate.
What happened to me in second grade was terrible. But not so terrible within me as to make me seek retaliation.
Now, I am going to guess that whatever happened to people who seek retaliation as though justice must have had vastly worse experiences within than any inner experience ever to come my way.
Another fork…
Quod erat demonstrandum?
Another fork…
What price must justice be had….Oh yes…not everyone is a Busch….damn…..we don’t all get that lucky….
I read on the WSJ law blog that Stinson did get a lawyer, Heather Lewis Donnell, and “will seek additional compensation through a pending civil rights lawsuit against Milwaukee and the dentist who provided expert testimony for prosecutors.”
I am sorry that happened to you Brian.
It drives me crazy when people like DOJ counsel David Rybicki say that I wasn’t damaged by being imprisoned. I just can’t seem to get over it.
To whom it may (including Kay) or may not concern:
You asked what I deem to be a really excellent question, whether I was ever incarcerated. Before I continue, I need to consult Black’s 6th through 9th, and some less specialized dictionaries.
[Pause, while perusing dictionaries]
Back from Black’s and more… Per Black’s 6th, I would have to ansswer, “No.” Per Black’s 7th, 8th, 9th, and some fairly recent “college dictionaries,” “Yes.”
For whoever read that of my dissertation on the Internet, and for those who haven’t, in the summer of 1986, I underwent a colectomy with ileo-rectal anastomosis at Michael Reese Hospital, in Chicago. Morphine for post-surgical pain helped with the pain and also flung me into a bizarrely terrifying morphine-induced iatrogenic psychosis.
As I began to make progress in recuperating from the surgery, it became increasingly obvious to me that my brain had ceased functioning properly. I promptly became a voluntary inpatient in the 8 East psychiatric unit of the University of Illinois Hospital. Whereas I was voluntary, I also was clearly aware, psychosis or not, that no one was going to let me leave of my own choice, once I was admitted to the unit. Had I filled out the forms for being discharged against medical advice, I would have been committed, I knew that, and so did my pychiatrist there.
What was wrong with me, why did morphine have such a drastic effect? Sensitivity to “side effects” of morphine varies greatly, I am not the only person to have such an experience.
A drastic factor, however, one that I would guess is rather uncommon, was of the response of my brain to the shattering experience of being unpredictably paddled until I became agitated-catatonic, dissociating severely to survive and avoid any form of retaliation. The barriers between personality states which had kept me safe since I was seven were torn asunder, and I realized and recognized that I had been so horridly abused as to need to be in a very safe place for as long as it took to learn what had happened to me and how I responded to it with dissociation that had been itself broken.
Although I had informed my psychiatrist that something terrible had happened to me, so terrible as to require my having multiple personalities, and although I informed my psychiatrist that I am autistic, my psychiatrist did not believe in multiple personalities and did not see the clinical signs expected with autism, so the truth I told was regarded as signs of schizophrenic psychosis, and my concerns about morphine psychosis induction were similarly regarded as mere further proof of my being schizophrenic. The good psychiatrists and psychologists surely meant well, so did my second grade teacher and principal. Alas, the whole bunch of them were simply mistaken. When, at the University of Chicago Medical Psychiatry Unit, some three years later, my neuropsychiatrist discontinued all the psychotropic medications as rapidly as he thought safe, all the supposedly schizophrenic signs promptly vanished. I was never schizophrenic, I was, when seven, traumatized by abuse beyond the dastardly atrocious, and I never retaliated, never.
During most of my psychiatric inpatient episode(s), I was too psychotic to get out by my own request and not nearly psychotic enough to try to sign myself out. Along the way, in stark contrast with Rosenhan’s pseudo-patients, I qualified as a real patient superbly well, thus being able to do research that no one else I ever heard of has been able to do among some of the most trauma-damaged people on earth.
The sound of a heavy steel door closing behind one, so that deciding to leave is an impossible decision is, some of my peer patients who had been jailed and/or imprisoned, much the same in jail/prison, or in a locked pscych. unit.
The effects of my second grade agitated catatonic terror took me into being QR’ed in full leathers, several times. While some might think that abusive, for me it was a remarkable form of freedom, such that I could allow my thoughts and emotions to go anywhere they could go while my body was kept safe.
(For those not familiar with the lingo, “QR’ed” is being put in the Quiet Room, and “full leathers” is being restrained with straps (for me, to a bed) attached to both legs and both arms. Impossible to scratch a nose itch.)
I was resolved to not allow my prior trauma (in second grade) lead to my doing anything which might lead to my being incarcerated in a jail, penitentiary or other corrections institution which might correct my determination to never retaliate for anything ever done to me by someone who does not know better…
PS There is a criminal docket report on PACER for me in Western District of Wisconsin. 3:06-mj-00019-slc. It lists opening, terminated, and pending counts as “none”.
@Republic of Stupidity
We’ve all seen the surveys of best places to live on various criteria. I’ve been thinking that someone should rank states on the basis of due process.
One state I would never voluntarily live in again is Colorado, where retaliation is big.
I don’t feel safe in Wisconsin either.
In Wisconsin the USMS held me for 3 weeks without putting me in the Automated Booking System or the Prisoner Tracking System. Even though I have no criminal record and don’t own a gun and am a middle aged woman, USMS classified me as a high security prisoner and kept me with high security prisoners. Looking back I think they were planning to have me “accidentally” murdered by other high security prisoners and that the only reason that didn’t happen is that their aviation equipment broke.
I was stored with a (high security) prisoner in Wisconsin who told me that she plea bargained in Wisconsin to 10 years but Judge Crabb gave her 30 years.
I was brought (in chains) into federal court in Madison. Later I checked the court calendar, which was on-line, and found out that my hearing wasn’t on the court calendar. The woman who officiated said she was a magistrate but she was listed on the web site of the federal court as a court clerk. I downloaded the court calendar for the entire year and found out that she had not officiated in any other hearing all year except mine, which was not an emergency. She wasn’t even listed on the docket report as officiating. I complained about the court hearing not being on the calendar, so then she changed that to show that it was, but I still have the original pdf. (For new readers I don’t have a criminal record and was held by the USMS without an arraignment or criminal charge.)
Wasn’t Ted Bundy convicted on bite marks?
“I have devised demonstrations which appear impossible to refute, showing that “the law” as now structured in the U.S.A. is impossible for anyone to understand except as isolated fragments.
The technique is simple, based on the strategic method of the game of chess fork gambit. Checkmate?” (J. Brian Harris)
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I was with you (it is impossible to be a law abiding citizen under the present structure of “the law” etc.) but you lost me with the “fork” gambit to checkmate for I’m reading that as one piece (usually the Knight in my games)attacking two opponent’s pieces at once in an attempt to capture one of the two.
Since I have missed the correlation perhaps you might re-explain either the point I missed or the chess term I have misconstrued.
Well…
That settles that…
Next time I don’t commit a crime I get convicted of, it certainly WON’T be in Wisconsin!
Another way to look at it is that we are all dependent on maintenance of our common law rights; that they are a shield against the constant forces of oppression.
Anyway, if anyone reading this blog knows any reason why DOJ isn’t liable to me under e(7) and g(4) of 5 USC 552a, I would really appreciate their comments.