Missouri passed a law to compensate the wrongfully convicted. Now it doesn’t want to pay.

After Missouri lawmakers expanded eligibility for wrongfully convicted people to receive compensation last year, Dale Helmig thought he could get nearly $1 million for the more than 14 years he spent in prison. And Darryl Burton hoped to obtain more than $1.5 million for the 24-plus years he was incarcerated.

But today, they are back in the legal system that put them away. The state attorney general is arguing in court that the two men aren’t innocent, setting aside judges’ prior decisions — and that even if they were, the new law isn’t retroactive.

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s effort to fight their compensation requests — the first two under the new compensation law — is part of a long history of the office vigorously opposing innocence claims. Under her predecessors, attorneys there have kept people in prison even after a judge has ordered their release and continued to fight cases in the face of overwhelming evidence of innocence.

Peter Joy, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said the Attorney General’s Office “has opposed claims of innocence on a very consistent basis, even though there have been times when the local prosecutor’s offices have recognized that the person had a valid claim of innocence.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t examining each case on its merits, Joy said. But if they were opposing these without a “good faith basis,” it would be a violation of prosecutors’ ethical obligation to seek justice, he said. A spokesperson for Hanaway declined to comment, citing the pending cases.

When Helmig and Burton were released from prison, only those exonerated through DNA evidence qualified for state compensation — not people like them, whose convictions were overturned based on recantations or other types of newly discovered evidence.

Then, last year, the Missouri legislature expanded eligibility and increased the amount of money exonerees can collect. The measure was approved by Gov. Mike Kehoe.

The law allocates about $65,000 for every year of wrongful incarceration. That amount is paid on an annual basis, not as a lump sum.

In Helmig’s case, a judge in DeKalb County, about an hour north of Kansas City, ruled in 2010 that there was clear and convincing evidence that he was innocent. 

Helmig had been convicted in the 1993 murder of his mother, Norma, whose body was found in a river in central Missouri, near where she lived. Prosecutors said his motive was a dispute over a phone bill, and that he’d thrown her purse from the bridge he would have traveled on from her home on the night of the murder. 

But uncovered evidence implicated Helmig’s father, court records show. The couple were in divorce proceedings. Helmig’s father had access to her mail at a local post office, including a canceled check that was dated after her death and later found in the purse. That undermined the prosecution’s theory about when the purse had been discarded — a key detail in their case against Helmig.

A state trooper also recanted his testimony. During the trial, he had told jurors that Helmig had not denied killing his mother when, in fact, he had. 

“This case presents the rare circumstance in which no credible evidence remains from the first trial,” the DeKalb County judge wrote in overturning Helmig’s conviction.

Helmig was released from prison in December 2010. He moved in with his brother and began rebuilding his life. It took him a while to find a job, but he eventually began driving a cab and painting decks. Sometimes he made extra money speaking to law classes about his arduous journey through the justice system, which wasn’t over because the Attorney General’s Office appealed his case.

Months later, the Western District Court of Appeals decided that two of Helmig’s six arguments were enough to establish “a fundamental miscarriage of justice” and upheld the decision to vacate his conviction. The other four issues — including more direct claims about his innocence — were set aside.

That would have unforeseen consequences. 

Since 1989, 56 people have been exonerated in Missouri. DNA evidence played a role in 15 of the cases, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.

Previously, those exonerated through DNA evidence could request $100 for every day they were incarcerated, paid up to a maximum of $36,500 annually. Six people have received the payments since 2015, according to state records, costing the state about $80,000 on average each fiscal year.

State Rep. LaKeySha Bosley, a Democrat from St. Louis who sponsored an earlier version of the bill, said the expanded measure was intended to be retroactive, meaning people like Helmig and Burton could petition for the money. 

“I don’t believe that we should put a limit or timeline on those who lost years of their life,” Bosley told The Marshall Project. “It is our fault as the government, and we should rectify that, regardless of when they were exonerated.”

But Jeffrey Gutman, professor emeritus at George Washington University School of Law and an expert in wrongful conviction compensation, said parts of Missouri’s new statute weren’t clear. It does not expressly say whether the law applies to past exonerations, and it doesn’t entirely lay out the procedure for proving innocence. It’s not surprising, he said, that the Attorney General’s Office is fighting the cases based on the statute’s language.

Three-quarters of states have some type of compensation law, though the amount and process for obtaining compensation varies widely. Gutman pointed to Louisiana and Oregon as other states where it’s been difficult for exonerees to get compensation.

State officials have dragged people back into court, sometimes in yearslong legal battles where officials questioned their eligibility and innocence. On the other hand, Illinois this year increased its compensation rate, and California has made it easier by streamlining the process for those exonerated under a particular statute.

Gutman said compensation statutes are important because there’s no other remedy, like filing a lawsuit, in cases where no government agency or official is at fault. 

And regardless of who is to blame, he said, “Society owes them compensation for their enormous suffering.”

In September, Helmig found himself back in the courtroom where he was wrongfully convicted for a hearing on his compensation request. His attorney, Sean O’Brien, argued that the law was retroactive because many relevant parts are written in the past tense. He also said a judge had determined his client was innocent, pointing to the DeKalb County judge’s decision.

Assistant Attorney General Andrew Clarke argued that most laws passed in Missouri are prospective. He then said that Helmig did not have a case for compensation because of that Western District opinion. That court found that prosecutors had withheld evidence about Helmig’s father and that an unauthorized map was introduced during jury deliberations.

It went on to conclude it did not need to address the other issues, including claims of Helmig’s actual innocence. The court added that Helmig was not “in any way impaired by our determination to address no more than that which is necessary.” 

At the time, the prosecutor could still seek a retrial. She chose not to.

“I think that that is the final legal determination,” O’Brien told Gasconade Circuit Judge Craig Hellmann. 

But Hellmann dismissed Helmig’s petition for compensation, writing in a judgment that Helmig was not eligible because he could not establish actual innocence. 

O’Brien has since filed a motion asking the Western District to recall its 2011 opinion. At the time, there was no harm in only taking up two of the claims, he said. But in light of the new law, that’s changed. A decision remains pending.

“Frustrating doesn’t begin to cover it,” O’Brien said of the roadblocks that Helmig has faced in requesting the compensation. “Dale is unquestionably innocent, the statute was written with people just like him in mind, and the State is invoking every conceivable legal technicality to obstruct his recovery.”

Helmig said he’s not surprised the AG’s office is opposing his compensation request, given its track record on wrongful conviction claims.

“They don’t care, it doesn’t matter if you’re innocent,” he said. But the lack of accountability in his case still gnaws at him, he said. “It’s really unbelievable.”

Helmig said receiving the compensation would help give him a retirement. Now 70, he’s had to slow down his work painting decks due to his age and high blood pressure. He said he lives on about $530 per month in Social Security. He spends his days simply: fishing with his brother at Lake of the Ozarks and chopping wood to keep his trailer warm in the winter months. If he gets the money, Helmig said he’d like to move somewhere outside of Missouri.

In the other restitution case, a St. Louis judge held an initial hearing in early October. Darryl Burton’s attorney, Burton Haigh, provided a sweeping overview of his client’s history: Burton was exonerated in 2008 after spending 24 years behind bars and a long appeals process that concluded when a judge in Cole County granted him reprieve.

He’d been convicted in a 1984 fatal shooting at a St. Louis gas station. At trial, prosecutors relied on two witnesses, one who later recanted and one whose account was said to be unreliable, court records show.

Michael Spillane, with the Attorney General’s Office, said this case differed from Helmig’s and he will be raising different arguments, though he didn’t elaborate.

After the hearing, Haigh told The Marshall Project he believes the Legislature’s intent was to help people like Burton and that he meets the requirements for receiving compensation.

“When violations of people’s due process are recognized, it’s foundational in our system to make wrongs right,” he said.

Spillane declined to comment. The sides are expected to present arguments next year.