Now that Marvin Haynes is a free man, he is expected to be eligible for compensation from the state.
Convicted in the shooting death of a man at a Minneapolis flower shop in 2005, a Hennepin County judge on Monday vacated the ruling. Judge William Koch signed a agreement between Haynes and the Hennepin County Attorney's Office saying a flawed investigation violated Haynes' rights. The Attorney's Office had stood by the conviction.
Haynes' sister Marvina worked with the Great North Innocence Project to win his freedom.
Attorney for the Great North Innocence Project, Andrew Markquart, told WCCO's Adam and Jordana there's a state statute that provides compensation for people wrongfully convicted of crimes.
"Obviously, no amount of money can compensate for having two decades in your prime taken away from you," says Markquart. "But we do hope that he will be able to get some compensation to be able to restart his life."
Marquart says Hanyes will likely qualify for a baseline payment of $50,000 dollars per year, and possibly more damages above and beyond that.
"There's various buckets of damages that you can recover," explains Markquart. "The way it works is you get baseline of $50,000 a year and then individualized damages based on your particular injuries above and beyond that."
Haynes said his next step would be to visit his mother, who had not been able to visit him in prison for the last three or four years since suffering a stroke. He said he now hopes to get a job and get his life back in order. And he recalled how get got the news on his birthday last Wednesday that Moriarty had agreed his conviction should be set aside.
“I shed tears,” he said. "I haven’t cried so much in 19 years. I’m so excited. Overwhelmed with emotion.”
Haynes was 16-years old at the time of the killing. In his order, the judge noted that there was no physical evidence linking Haynes to the crime scene.
During the 2005 trial, prosecutors relied on testimony from several minors who claimed to have heard Haynes bragging about the killing, including Haynes’ cousin Isiah Harper, who was 14 at the time. Harper has since signed an affidavit recanting, saying officers threatened to send him to prison if he didn’t help corroborate their theories about the case.
“This is someone who has every right in the world to be bitter, to be angry," Markquart said. ”But he’s not. And then he carries himself with this remarkable sense of hope and positivity that is so admirable."