Key Points:

• Arizona’s Erroneous Convictions Fund has lost funding in the new state budget

• The fund’s $3 million allocation has been depleted by its 11 initial applicants

• The fund was designed to provide compensation and counseling to those wrongfully imprisoned

Just a year ago, state lawmakers and Gov. Katie Hobbs agreed to establish a program to provide those wrongfully convicted of crimes with compensation. 

Now that program is gone.

Strictly speaking, a provision tucked into the new state budget requires the state’s first-ever Erroneous Convictions Fund to use only money from its own coffers.

That’s a problem because the $3 million put into the fund last year is already spoken for. In fact, the 11 people who were the first to apply have already requested more than that.

Basically, the program is broke — and the new state budget isn’t stepping in to bail it out. 

That has left Rep. Khyl Powell, who got unanimous support for the program a year ago, bitter.

The Gilbert Republican reminded colleagues that the whole purpose of the fund was to provide financial relief “for people who lives were destroyed and people who were pardoned because they were put in prison illegally, they were put in prison innocently.”

He also wants to ensure the Legislature has its priorities straight.

“We just voted on a bill to give $500,000 for helping those who have problems with gambling,” he said.

“Yet we cannot find monies … to help somebodies whose lives have been destroyed,” he continued. “To me, it’s incomprehensible.”

But Senate Majority Leader John Kavanagh said the program was never meant to receive funding beyond its original $3 million.

Instead, the Fountain Hills Republican said it was temporary, a program only meant to provide the initial seed money for recovery without plaintiffs having to earn it in court. That’s important because, to Kavanagh, the wrongful convictions aren’t the state’s fault.

“We’re paying off wrongs committed by county prosecutors,” Kavanagh said. “The counties (are) responsible for compensating them.”

But if the funds run out, that will leave those with wrongful convictions no option but to sue the state for compensation, the very problem Powell said the fund — and its expedited review — were designed to avoid. 

As approved last year, the measure entitles those found to be factually innocent with financial relief equal to twice the median income for each of the 12 years they were locked up.

But the measure did more than offer payouts, it also offered counseling and job training. 

It even featured a built in blocker against any reduction in payments for what it cost to house and feed the newly innocent while incarcerated.

It wasn’t just Powell’s arguments that pushed Arizona join more than three dozen other states with similar wrongful conviction programs. During hearings last year, lawmakers also heard from those whose lives were forever altered by wrongful convictions.

That included Drayton Witt, who said he was stabbed 73 times and nearly killed while imprisoned by the state in Winslow, Arizona.

Witt was convicted in 2002 of second-degree murder after being accused of shaking his nearly 5-month-old baby to death. But he was released after the county medical examiner reexamined the evidence and concluded that the death was the result of the child’s medical history and neurological problems.

Witt told lawmakers last year that he started a small painting company after being freed in 2012, but it still hasn’t been easy to rebuild his life.

“I would lose numerous jobs on a daily basis just simply from a Google search” which turned up his conviction, Witt said. Still, he said, it’s not simply about compensation.

“It’s more about integrity, holding people accountable,” Witt continued.

“At one point in time, I voted for somebody to be put in a position of power to look out for my best interests,” he said. “And, instead, those people sent me up the river to die.”

As of February — the most recent data available — 11 individuals wrongly convicted have applied for millions of dollars in compensation from the state, swamping the $3 million state fund.

In some ways, that was expected, as the legislation was crafted to be retroactive affecting not just new cases but those going back years.

Legislative analysts had said there have been 24 exonerations in Arizona since 1989, with an average time behind bars of 5.6 years. Assuming just 20% of those exonerated in that time period submit claims, that’s penciled out to a one-time cost of $4.5 million.

But that report also concluded that, based on historical averages, the annual cost going forward would be in the neighborhood of about $641,000 per exoneration.

“Their absence of being in the community for 15 or 20 years may have injured their ability to provide for themselves,” he said. “So now they need additional training.”

The bill also provides for up to four financial planning or literacy classes within the first year.

“We provide outlets for them to be fully restituted and be able to recover so that they then can become a productive member of society,” Powell said.

Those benefits led Powell back to the chamber floor to fight for another $3 million for the fund, at least through 2027. But not only did his bill fail to receive a hearing, but his colleagues, through the budget process, confirmed there would be no more cash. 

Powell decried that decision on Thursday.

“We need to help people whose lives have been destroyed because we destroyed it through our criminal justice system,” he told colleagues.

Rep. Alexander Kolodin agreed.

“It’s a travesty that we have messed with what I view as one of the greatest achievements during my time in the Legislature,” said the Scottsdale Republican, who noted it was “no small feat” seeing Powell push the measure during his first year as a representative. 

Still, Kolodin said the provision gutting the fund was only one part of a plan he still overall supports. So, unlike Powell, he ended up voting for the measure.