MASSACHUSETTS: COMPENSATION AT LAST

More cases of eyewitness identification being shown as wrong by DNA

Three men wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit became the first to receive cash compensation from the state under a law approved last year. Two of the men, Eduardo Velazquez and Eric Sarsfield, received the maximum allowed under the law – $500,000 each. A third man who had submitted two claims, Dennis Maher, received $550,000. The cases were reviewed by the attorney general’s office before they were sent to Gov. Mitt Romney’s budget chief, Eric Kriss, who signed off on the three settlements Friday. Another nine cases are still pending.

The three men had each been convicted of rape and spent a decade or more in prison. All three were later exonerated with the help of DNA evidence.

Sarsfield was convicted in 1987 for a rape in Marlborough. The victim identified Sarsfield three months after the attack, and after he was cleared, she wrote a letter in support of his attempt to get compensation from the state.

Velazquez was convicted in 1988 of aggravated rape and indecent assault in Chicopee. He served nearly 14 years in prison before being released in 2001.

Maher was convicted in 1983 of two rapes and an assault in Lowell and Ayer. He was identified as the attacker by each of the three victims at two separate trials. He ended up serving 19 years in prison before being released in 2003.

Peter Neufeld of the law firm Cochran, Neufeld and Scheck, represented Sarsfield and Velazquez. He said both men suffered during their time in prison. Velazquez spent a portion of his sentence in a private prison for sex offenders on the Texas/Mexican border. Neufeld said Velazquez appreciates both the public declaration of innocence and the fact that he received the maximum available under the law. “There’s no question that the state can’t adequately compensate Eric and Eduardo for the time they spent in prison and the freedom they lost,” Neufeld said. “Other young men were going out and getting married and starting family and starting careers, and they were in these facilities punching license plates.”

Corey Welford, a spokesman for Attorney General Tom Reilly, said that under the law the three men were clearly entitled to the settlement. “We’re pleased to quickly resolve these cases for these three men whose innocence was clear and who clearly met the standards of the statute,” he said. Under the law passed by the Legislature late last year, exonerated people can ask for a civil trial to make their case for compensation of up to $500,000. Anyone filing a claim has to show by “clear and convincing evidence” that they did not commit the crime for which they were convicted. They must also show they spent at least a year in prison. The state isn’t liable for punitive damages.

Supporters of the law say it’s a matter of simple justice that the state compensate the wrongfully convicted for the time spent behind bars. More than a dozen other states already have similar laws, including New York and Illinois. Before the law was approved, it required a special act of the Legislature to compensate the wrongfully convicted.

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