Alan Northrop lost 17 years of his life after being wrongfully convicted of a 1993 rape in La Center and imprisoned.
After he was cleared of the crime last July, he received no compensation from Washington state and, instead, was saddled with a child support bill of more than $100,000.
Northrop shared his story Tuesday afternoon with a Senate committee hearing in Olympia. He spoke in favor of a bill that would compensate wrongfully convicted defendants up to $20,000 for each year they spent behind bars.
Northrop is 46 and lives in Ridgefield. While he has a job at a metal fabrication shop in Vancouver, he still can’t afford a car and has to rely on public transportation.
“It would really give us a step up,” Northrop said, gesturing at two men seated next to him: his former co-defendant, Larry Davis, and Ted Bradford, a defendant exonerated of rape charges in Yakima County. “Even though I do have a job, I’m struggling.”
Sponsored by Sen. James Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, Senate Bill 5139 was introduced Jan. 17 and was referred to the Committee on Human Services and Corrections.
The bill notes how exonerated defendants in Washington have no legal redress to recover damages. Twenty-seven other states have compensation laws, according to the Innocence Project Northwest.
The legislation came before the Senate after a similar House bill, sponsored by Rep. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, calling for compensation of up to $50,000 a year, did not receive a House committee hearing.
Hargrove’s legislation would apply to defendants who were exonerated of crimes and no longer serving prison sentences. Under the bill, the compensated money could be used to pay child support bills and additional money could be delegated to cover attorneys’ fees.
In addition to Northrop, Davis and Bradford, several prosecutors testified at the hearing, saying they supported the idea of compensation but believed the bill needed to be revised to more clearly define those who are wrongfully convicted.
Lana Weinmann, senior assistant attorney general with the Washington Attorney General’s Office, did not want the bill to encompass those found to be an accessory to a crime or someone who lied to police during the investigation. She said the wording of the bill is too vague.
“We’re not opposed to the concept,” she said. “The problem we have is the language of the bill.”
Northrop and Davis were convicted by two separate juries of attacking and raping a housekeeper cleaning a home in La Center on Jan. 11, 1993. The men’s convictions were based solely on the woman’s eyewitness account, although she was blindfolded and only caught a glimpse of her attackers.
In 2006, a Clark County judge approved post-conviction DNA testing requested by the Innocence Project Northwest, which operates in conjunction with the University of Washington’s law school. The DNA evidence, taken from the victim at the time of the crime, did not return a match with either Northrop or Davis.
The men’s convictions were vacated by a judge on April 21 and prosecutors dismissed charges in July.
