Putting a Price on Wrong Conviction

A man who spent nearly 20 years in prison for an Orange County murder he probably did not commit has set a price on his lost freedom: $10 million.

In a federal lawsuit filed Friday, DeWayne McKinney said his wrongful conviction was the fault of Orange police, who arrested him, and the Orange County public defender’s office, which represented him at his trial.

“I would not say $10 million is an unreasonable amount of money for a man who lost 19 years of his life and lost the opportunity to watch his young son grow into a man and to be with his family,” said attorney Robert Meylan.

There is no easy calculation for how much a wrongfully imprisoned inmate is due from the government--and compensation in such cases varies widely.

Kevin Green, a Tustin man who spent 16 years in prison for attempted murder before DNA evidence proved his innocence, received $620,000 from the state last year.

At the other end of the spectrum, four convicted murderers who spent a combined 65 years in prison collected $36 million in Illinois after a group of Northwestern journalism students proved they were innocent.

McKinney, 39, was released from prison in January at the urging of Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas, who prosecuted McKinney in 1982, then concluded 17 years later that another man probably had committed the crime.

Since his release, McKinney has taken a job as a classroom assistant at UC Irvine. He has bought a car and lives in a rented house in Costa Mesa.

The lawsuit accuses a former Orange police detective of misleading witnesses who later implicated McKinney in court and the public defender’s office of failing to pursue evidence pointing to another suspect.

Wayne Winthers, assistant Orange city attorney, scoffed at McKinney’s demand.

“People put in all kinds of figures in lawsuits,” Winthers said. “I’ve had people ask for millions, then settle for thousands.

“But I don’t mean to trivialize his claim. He spent 19 years in prison. So I would expect that to come with a large price tag.”

Joshua Dressler, a professor at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, said he does not believe McKinney’s financial claim is out of line.

“The defendants would get off very cheaply if it’s only that amount,” he said. “It’s not just the time in prison, the 20 years, but the life experience. Being in a prison is so dehumanizing and degrading. To be sitting there, knowing the government wronged you, that’s probably the most infuriating part of it.”

While in prison, McKinney became a target of the Mexican Mafia prison gang. He was stabbed on three separate occasions.

“It was sure hell for him,” Meylan said.

According to McKinney’s lawsuit, Orange Police Det. John Webb told several witnesses that he had physical evidence linking McKinney to the crime when such evidence did not exist. Those witnesses later testified against McKinney at trial.

The lawsuit also accuses the public defender’s office of failing to pursue evidence pointing to another suspect. It was the public defender’s office that filed a motion in 1999 that led to McKinney’s release.

“If the police and public defenders had done their job, Mr. McKinney would not have lost 19 years of his life,” Meylan said. “The lawsuit seeks to compensate Mr. McKinney for those 19 lost years.”

Orange County Public Defender Carl Holmes, who led the effort to win McKinney’s release but is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment. Holmes defended McKinney at his second trial in 1986.

Orange city officials argue that the statute of limitations expired one year after McKinney’s conviction, so it is now too late for him to file suit.

“Mr. McKinney was tried by two separate juries, convicted both times. There was ample opportunity to question witnesses and the officers,” Winthers said. “To try to say 18 or 19 years later that people are not sure about the identification, that’s a little bit after the fact. We’ll defend this, and we’ll prevail.”

Winthers said it is unlikely the city will settle the lawsuit. Orange is self-insured up to $350,000, and uses a liability insurance pool for amounts above that threshold.