I was convicted of first degree murder and felony
firearm. I was convicted in October of 2001.
My wrongful conviction took place when I was 21
years old, so I was cut off from society at the
age of 21.
And my exoneration and my release happened when
I was 40 years old.
So we're talking 20 years.
The city that I left behind was not the city
that I walked into.
For the past few decades, state and local
governments throughout the US have paid out a
total of $2.9 billion to Americans who are
wrongfully convicted of crimes. Of those 727
exonerees who've won settlements, their
payouts average out to 318,000 for each year
they've served in prison. It's a pain that
no one would want to go through in advance and
say, Hey, I'll give you $10 Million if you go do
20 years in prison.
No one would take that bet.
Thousands of Americans like Marvin Cotton have
been sent to prison for crimes they didn't
commit, and they're suing the government that
locked them up, some of them winning tens of
millions of dollars.
Now, those big payouts and improvements in DNA
technology have attracted companies
offering cash advances to exonerees with the
hope of substantial payback.
That is, if they win their case.
Many of these private firms are backed by
venture capitalists and private investors.
Exonerees face a myriad of issues when seeking
compensation an uphill civil suit against the
government, mounting bills and life expenses
and the toll of reentry into society.
Everything in the system turns very slow.
You know, when you're sitting in a prison cell
waiting for the courts to respond to your appeal
is slow. When you're out of the system but still
fighting with the system, everything still
moves slow. This investment is an
attractive lifeline for many who, despite their
freedom, are short on chances.
Thousands of people have been exonerated from
their wrongful convictions, yet only a
small fraction are eligible to sue for
compensation and even fewer win the headline
making million dollar awards. After years of
being locked up, reentry into society comes at a
high price.
You're basically there with nothing.
You have potentially no housing, health care,
mental health services, vocational training,
employment, even an ID card.
You don't have if you've been in for a while, you
may never have used a cell phone.
You don't know what a debit card is.
I mean, it's unimaginable, really, to
consider what someone's life is after having been
inside for a long time and then out they go as
an innocent person doing that.
20 years I've lost family members, friends to
death. You never get the opportunity to grieve.
You never get the opportunity to say
goodbye to the new family members that's
being born into my family.
You never get the opportunity to say hello.
So you have relationships that are
never established and relationships that you
never get closure to.
You can't get those things back.
You can't get goodbyes back.
You can't get hellos back.
There are a few ways exonerees can seek
compensation through federal statutes, state
statutes, or in a civil suit.
There are 38 states in the District of Columbia
that have a state statute that permits
somebody to seek compensation, either
through a lawsuit or through an administrative
procedure. So with respect to the other 12
states, the only way to get compensated is
through a civil rights case, if you have one.
For those exonerees who can prove their
innocence, the state and federal process is pretty
straightforward. Some states and cities now
have funds set aside to settle wrongful
conviction cases.
However, some exonerees want higher payouts for
their time spent incarcerated. Those kind
of civil suits have a stronger burden of proof
and higher costs associated with the court
process.
What you have to prove is that what caused that was
a particular kind of official misconduct.
You have to show that a police officer hid
evidence or manufactured evidence or coerced a
confession or did something like that.
It's at this inflection point that exonerees or
their attorneys reach out to litigation firms
for funding.
Although the terminology around the funding is
used interchangeably.
There's a key difference between a litigation loan
and a cash advance.
First, there's no credit.
Checks, there's no collaterals, there's no
guarantees, there's no assets. And it's also a
advance that it's legally defined as
non-recourse, which means the only way that
we can collect our investment is if the
claim actually succeeds and if there's profits
available to pay us back.
Conversely, let's say that claim is not
successful or it's successful, but it
recovers significantly below than what everybody
expected that it was going to recover.
We just don't get paid back.
Abraham works for Tribeca Law, a litigation firm
that has funded many high profile cases over
the years. And this type of funding, the money
given to the exoneree is called the principal.
If a case is won, this amount is normally the
minimum to be paid back.
Interest or rates of return are applied to the
principal amount, which have a wide range
depending on the firm and case.
Some exonerees have quoted rates over 30%,
which over a few years can double the amount to
pay back. A litigation loan differs from a cash
advance because the loan would require repayment
regardless of the outcome of the case.
What we've seen in in connection with
litigation loans are a number of problems.
There are companies that are a little too
aggressive with clients.
There are companies that don't offer what is the
market rate for this kind of loan?
And too many times exonerees are not aware
of their options in structuring their loans
to take the money over time, which can help them
reduce their interest burden.
After being wrongfully incarcerated for years
and then having to reprove your innocence.
That trauma places an extreme mental toll on
exonerees who oftentimes are fighting in these
civil suits for years.
It's a perfect recipe for a predatory lender to
take advantage of them at this time of
vulnerability.
Michigan is a gold mine for litigation funds
looking to cash in.
The state has one of the highest number of
exonerations from wrongful convictions.
Michigan has shelled out over 22 million since it
established its own wrongful conviction
compensation law in 2016.
Marvin Cotton, who was exonerated in 2020, is
one of several exonerees hoping to be compensated
by the state. I walked out of prison with
nothing, so that makes for an even more
difficult transition.
On top of the trauma from spending 20 years in
prison for something I didn't do.
Marvin was able to prove his innocence with the
help of the state's Conviction Integrity
Unit, which works under the DA to investigate
claims of innocence. Some of the things that
they found in my case were a lot of police
misconduct, where evidence or information
was hidden from the defense as well as some
information that was manufactured. Exoneration
is only the first of many hurdles facing
people with newly minted freedom.
One of the first challenges that I faced
when I got out of prison is that I didn't exist.
I didn't have a driver's license or any type of
ID, I didn't have a birth certificate, and I
didn't have a Social Security card.
And next to that technology is is is very
difficult to navigate when you haven't had
access. Since being released from prison,
Cotton has been fighting on several fronts to
secure compensation for his wrongful conviction.
I am seeking compensation for my
wrongful conviction.
I currently do have a state claim and a federal
claim, and it's not a quick process or an easy
process. Pursuing compensation is also
reopening wounds.
With all of the trauma that I've been through
and that other exonerees go through, securing
compensation for my wrongful conviction.
It means a security that I haven't enjoyed for
many, many years to give you enough security to
stand on and step on.
That means everything to someone that has lost
everything. These long, drawn out court battles
come at a high price, causing many exonerees to
turn to legal representation, which can
also come at a high price pending a
victorious outcome.
Attorneys are typically given a third of anything
that's awarded or settled, and that's
always on the back end.
Marvin isn't getting funding via a litigation
fund, but his plight sheds light on the
precarious financial position that exonerees
find themselves in, Even trying to put a price on
what I've been through, it doesn't sit well with
me. There's no amount of compensation that can,
you know, restore or to atone for what I've been
through. But in this space you need.
Great representation.
You need somebody that's really going to protect
and get you everything that you really deserve.
Your attorney is really the person on the front
line that knows all of the things that you don't
know in order to get you that measure of justice.
Despite acclimating to a change society and
battling the courts.
Marvin has kept busy since his release.
He's starting a nonprofit to offer
support and resources to other exonerees.
And I also started my own business, which is
better, Not Broken LLC, where I do motivational
speaking. And I just released a book that's an
Amazon bestseller called Better Not Broken.
A few states already have usury laws, either
on the legislative floor or in practice around the
industry.
I think that we're we're eventually moving to
probably a federal regulation, you know, the
same way that financial institutions are
regulated now, there's there's federal law that
control what banks can and cannot do.
I think that maybe the the end of all this is
going to be for Congress to take the reins and
probably incorporate what a lot of states have
done and then cover the states that haven't done
anything or that have gone beyond or.
Under the bipartisan Justice for All Act
reauthorization bill was brought to the Senate
floor in 2022.
The bill hopes to expand conviction integrity
units, divisions of a prosecutorial office that
work to prevent, identify and remedy false
convictions.
I hope we go away in that regard, because that
would mean that we fix that brokenness in the
system. Up until that happens, you know, if our
system keeps throwing young, innocent, usually,
you know, people of color into prison without
having done anything, you know, there's going
to be companies like us.
I think it's important for members of the
general public to really take interest in wrongful
convictions and the whole process of what
what goes on in the criminal justice system
when it comes to this, because people don't
usually care about this until it affects their
house.