As noted earlier today by JR Hoeft, Governor Bob McDonnell has signed a bill, SB41, which provides more than one million dollars in compensation to Thomas Haynesworth, who was wrongfully convicted in 1984 for rape and other felonies and who subsequently served 27 years in prison as an innocent man. SB41 was copatroned by Senators Henry Marsh and Donald McEachin and it was passed unanimously by both the House and the Senate.
Haynesworth sought and received a writ of actual innocence and the General Assembly voted unanimously to compensate him for the loss of his liberty and nearly three decades of life as a productive member of society.
Delegate Rob Bell and state Senator Mark Obenshain are two of the legislators who voted to approve this restitution package. Both men are lawyers and both men are seeking the Republican nomination to succeed Ken Cuccinelli as Virginia’s Attorney General in 2013. I caught up with Bell and Obenshain tonight at the Albemarle County Republican Party’s mass meeting, and I asked them for comments on the Haynesworth matter.
Mark Obenshain said:
Our criminal justice system is about seeking justice. It is not about seeking convictions. It is not about locking people up no matter the consequences.
When an injustice has been done it is incumbent upon us to do that which is right and, in this instance, I believe that there’s a broad consensus that an injustice had occurred. I think it’s incumbent upon us as citizens of the Commonwealth to step forward and accept responsibility.
Rob Bell said:
Virginia has had a longstanding policy when there is someone [who] has been incarcerated, under certain circumstances — and it’s not every single time that a case doesn’t go the right way, but under certain circumstances — we can provide restitution for a criminal who is wrongly convicted.
This was an innocent man who served a lengthy sentence because he was wrongfully convicted, so we all voted for that. That was a consensus bill and we’re happy to – not happy to, but we’re prepared to — pay him at least partial restitution for the time he spent in prison.
“Consensus” is a word one seldom hears in the context of Virginia’s General Assembly. Despite the tragic circumstances in the case of Thomas Haynesworth, it’s good to hear it uttered independently by two members.
