By Rina N. Risper
The New Citizens Press
LANSING, MI – Ken Wyniemko was convicted of a rape he didn’t commit in 1994. Wyniemko was freed from prison in 2004, after spending 9 years locked up. The results of DNA test of a cigarette butt and semen stained nylons showed that it didn’t match his DNA. Although, Wyniemko professed his innocence, he was convicted of rape and burglary. A court appointed attorney assigned to Wyniemko’s case had less than a week to prepare for his defense. The jury also heard from a jailhouse informant who was spared a life sentence for his testimony that Wyniemko confessed. Even though the victim was blindfolded and the attacker wore a ski mask, she said she was certain that it was Wyniemko. A judge exceeded the sentencing guidelines because Wyniemko didn’t show remorse and sentenced him to 40 – 60 years in prison.
Even though Wyniemko spent 9 long years in prison, he kept his paperwork pertaining to his case. He was released with the help and diligence of Thomas M. Cooley Law School’s Innocence Project. Since the advent of DNA, there have been exonerations of innocent people. However, some of these cases don’t solve the issue of Michigan’s broken public defense system. The DNA exonerations only prove that there is scientific evidence that the crime was not committed. In Wyniemko’s case the real perpetrator has’nt been found.
A recent report entitled “A Race to the Bottom, Speed & Savings Over Due Process: A Constitutional Crisis” researched and written by the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) was unveiled on June 17, 2008. The report found that the state of Michigan fails to provide competent representation for individuals who cannot afford legal counsel. Even though there were several issues that led to the failure of the system to protect Wyniemko from prosecution, one of the main issues was that he had substandard legal counsel.
The U.S. Constitution says that you have the right to an attorney if you‘re accused of a crime and cannot afford one. In order to have a working system in place, there needs to be effective defense representation. The NLADA report asserts that Michigan’s dependency on a public defense system funded at the county level leads to a disproportional service delivery level. The state has shifted the cost of public defense to 83 different counties and the level of service is dependent upon what county you live in. As a result, it can be argued that there’s no conformity of services, which is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Due to the challenges facing Michigan’s economy, county budgets are stretched. In an effort to cut down on spending in counties, many counties are cutting public defense dollars. According to the NLADA, these cutbacks are jeopardizing public safety and making mistakes that cost more money over the long term.
Eddie Joe Lloyd was convicted of rape and murder in 1984 after falsely confessing to raping and killing a 16-year-old girl. He was a psychiatric patient at the time. His first appointed lawyer quit on the day of his trial and his second failed to argue key issues.
According to the Innocence Project, police officers visited and interrogated him several times in the hospital. During the course of these interrogations, police officers allowed Lloyd to believe that, by confessing and getting arrested, he would help them "smoke out" the real perpetrator. They fed him details including the location of the body, the type of jeans the victim was wearing and other details about the victim and the crime scene. Lloyd signed a written confession and gave a tape recorded statement as well. The jury deliberated for less than an hour before convicting him of first degree felony murder. In 2002, 17 years later DNA evidence would later show he didn’t commit the crime and proved him innocent.
Lloyd filed suit and it was settled for approximately $4 million, in addition to the amount the state spent prosecuting the case and defending the appeal and the cost of the habeas and civil lawsuits.
Wyniemko sued Clinton Township and it was settled out of court for 3.7 million dollars. It cost taxpayers of the state of Michigan roughly $300,000 to incarcerate him. Costly errors cost taxpayers of Michigan and effective assistance is needed.
According to the NLADA report, there are many people of insufficient means that are routinely processed through the criminal justice system without ever having spoken to an attorney, which is direct violation of a ruling by the United State Supreme Court that extended the right to counsel to misdemeanor cases.
They found that many district courts throughout Michigan don’t offer counsel in misdemeanor cases. These include uninformed waivers of counsel, offers by prosecutors to “get out of jail” for time served prior to meeting or being approved for a publicly-finance defense counsel and the threat of personal financial strains through unfair cost recovery methods.
District courts across the state are prioritizing speed and in the case of Ottawa County, on the day of district court arraignments it is “McJustice Day” which describes the value of speed over substance. Not only does Michigan need to give cases adequate due process but it needs to provide defense attorneys with sufficient financial resources and the proper training so that mistakes occur at a lesser rate.
Edward H. Pappas, president-elect of the State Bar of Michigan, said that there has been a long recognized need to examine the delivery of the current public defense services. He noted that the State Bar of Michigan responded to the concern in 2002 after the American Bar Association (ABA) and the State Bar of Michigan adopted guiding principles of an adequate public defense delivery system.
Based on a study by the Marketing Resource Group, people in Michigan expect a fair effective criminal justice system, but they’re losing faith in the system. Three quarters of Michigan citizens agree that a rich person gets better treatment in Michigan’s criminal justice system than a poor person. In the same study, only 14 percent of Michigan citizens have a great deal of confidence that the Michigan criminal justice system is ensuring that the guilty are convicted and the innocent are set free.
While there are many other issues that currently plague the system, providing adequate, equitable and consistent monetary resources statewide is only real solution to the problem. In order to accomplish this there needs to be: a mobilization of individuals across the state to educate policymakers and the public regarding the need to reform our current system; a building of networks of organizations, faith based institutions and grassroots groups to collaborate around a vision of an equitable justice system; and to fight passionately to win passage of legislation by contacting the state legislature for change.
Electronic copies of the full report, Evaluation of Trial-Level Indigent Defense Systems in Michigan: A Race to the Bottom, are available for free download at: http://www.nlada.org/Defender/Defender_Evaluation/Michigan_Evaluation
