The case helped inspire a Michigan law aimed at compensating the wrongfully convicted. But Schafer’s successor and the Michigan attorney general’s office aren’t convinced he should be paid. Gavitt’s appeals failed until the Innocence Clinic at University of Michigan law school took his case in 2010. The big irony is that Gavitt’s case was often raised when the Michigan Legislature voted to pay people who were wrongly convicted. “The general public would never believe a man out for six years still hasn’t gotten a penny from anybody,” Syed said.

Source: National Post March 04, 2018 15:45 UTC