Eleven years in prison for a crime I didn’t commit. KY still won’t compensate me | Opinion

Spending 11 years behind bars for a crime I didn’t commit was the biggest challenge of my life. I came home one day to a neighbor telling me the police were looking for me, and the next thing I knew I had been convicted of the rape and robbery of a 22-year old woman.

There was no physical evidence connecting me to the crime; I was convicted solely on the basis of mistaken identity. I never stopped trying to prove my innocence, and after 11 long years, I was paroled after new details of my innocence came to light. But it would take another 16 years to be exonerated in a court of law. In the interim, I reunited with my family, found a training program to be a plumber and started to rebuild my life — a tall task given the fact that Kentucky offered no financial support following my release.

Since 1989, 23 innocent Kentuckians have been wrongfully convicted, collectively spending 220 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit. Yet, Kentucky is one of only 10 states that does not compensate wrongfully convicted people who are later proven actually innocent. Senate Bill 131, sponsored by Senators Robin Webb and Steve Rawlings, offers us renewed hope that we may one day get justice.

The sad truth about wrongful convictions is that nobody gets justice — neither me nor the victim received justice when I was wrongfully convicted in 1983 while the real culprit got away and went on to commit additional crimes. Despite having an alibi corroborated by three people, and the victim stating her attacker had blue eyes (when my eyes are brown), a jury found me guilty. This kind of eyewitness misidentification is a contributing factor in 70% of the first 375 wrongful convictions in the United States overturned by post-conviction DNA evidence.

Before my exoneration, I thought I had to accept that life had dealt me this hand until I noticed a story in the newspaper about the Kentucky Innocence Project. I contacted them the next day and began the journey to my exoneration.

KIP found that a man who closely resembled me had committed similar crimes in the same area around the same time. With this new evidence of innocence, the judge vacated my conviction in 2010, issuing a ruling from the bench and acknowledging, “the real bad guy got away from us.”

That man died in a high speed police chase the same year I was convicted, and though he never served the time that I was forced to, it was incredibly vindicating to have the truth proven in court. While my plumbing career helped stabilize and improve my life financially, it was my exoneration that emotionally uplifted me. Even now I’m still grappling with my feelings about my case.

Many of my fellow exonerees continue to struggle mightily with their finances after missing out on education and career opportunities while wrongfully incarcerated. Those who are eligible are embroiled in years long civil cases that are costly to them and taxpayers. Wrongful convictions affect our families, friends, and communities. There are birthdays, graduations, weddings, funerals — important life moments that we’re forced to miss. While we were able to overcome high burdens and procedural barriers to prove our innocence, in some ways we are still waiting for justice.

Senate Bill 131, which would provide compensation to exonerees for the years we lost due to wrongful incarceration, is about righting wrongs. It creates a framework that allows eligible exonerees, whose innocence has been proven in court, to file a claim and receive compensation and support services, as well as a certificate of innocence, and have the record of our wrongful convictions expunged. While nothing can make up for the time or liberty robbed from us, Senate Bill 131 would allow us to move forward with dignity, and I’m looking forward to the day it passes.

Mike VonAllmen, a Louisville resident, was wrongfully convicted of rape in 1983. He was paroled in 1994 and worked to get back on his feet and support his family as a husband and father. Sixteen years later, after a reinvestigation by the Kentucky Innocence Project pointed to the likely true perpetrator, Mike was exonerated in 2010.