Jackson Free Press

Passing a law is rarely an easy process when it comes to a contentious issue that requires a state commitment to more money, especially when that money is essentially an apology and the legal admission that the state was wrong. Such was the case for Senate Bill 3024, which allots up to $500,000 to formerly incarcerated individuals who are deemed by the Mississippi attorney general's office as wrongly prosecuted.

Below is a timeline of how Senate Bill 3024 was passed.

January 2006: Freshly elected Sen. Kelvin Butler, D-Magnolia, joins other Democratic lawmakers in submitting bills offering restitution for innocent people wrongfully convicted. Republicans and some conservative tough-on-crime Democrats unite against the bill, defeating not only Butler's restitution bills, but bills submitted by other mostly black Democrats throughout 2006 and 2007.

January 2009: Butler and Sens. Sampson Jackson, D-Preston, and Vincent Davis, D-Fayette, merge their efforts to pass a restitution bill with that of Sen. Gray Tollison. Tollison takes cues from restitution advocates like the Innocence Project of New Orleans, a non-profit that helped overturn the conviction of Jackson resident Cedric Willis after DNA evidence revealed him to be innocent of a 1994 shooting death.

Feb. 11, 2009: The Tollison/Butler bill passes the Senate Judiciary B Committee with a 27-to-20 vote. Accusations spurring the vote include outrage against Dr. Steven Hayne, forensic pathologist whose questionable testimony led to the wrongful conviction and incarceration of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks for a combined total of 34 years on separate crimes.

Feb. 13. 2009: Senate Bill 3024 gathers even more momentum, fueled by continuing outcry against Hayne and accusations in Hinds County that former Hinds County prosecutors intentionally excluded Willis' DNA evidence that would have exonerated him of the 1994 shooting death. The bill passes the Senate with an amazing 51 votes.

Feb. 17, 2009: The bill goes to the House for a vote.

March 5, 2009: The House, which contains even more Democrats than the Senate, has been reading and hearing the same news stories as the Senate regarding wrongful convictions. The Hayne debacle is proving to be an embarrassment in the House. Representatives pass the bill with a total of 116 votes.

March 30, 2009: Gov. Haley Barbour approves the bill with no fuss, even though his signature ties the state to future expenditures.

Aug. 5, 2009: Mississippi Commissioner of Public Safety Steve Simpson announces that the state will no longer pay Hayne to do autopsies.

December 2009: Willis announces that his first $50,000 installment of $500,000 in state restitution will begin in 2010.