Wrongfully convicted seek aid
In 1996 the former Rhode Island police officer was sentenced to life in prison for the 1989 murder of a woman he was having an affair with. For six years, four months and 18 days, Hornoff sat in a prison cell knowing he did not commit murder.
In November 2001 a man came forward and admitted to being the killer. A 45-year-old carpenter said he was consumed by guilt that someone else was spending the rest of his life in prison for a crime that he committed.
But Hornoff's troubles were just beginning. While in prison, he lost his career as a police officer, lost his house, his marriage and his car. His mother had to sell her house to help pay for his legal fees.
"It's very difficult trying to reintegrated back into society, even with a support structure with family and friends in place," Hornoff said.
Hornoff now has made it his mission to speak out about the need for laws to help exonerated inmates get back on their feet and put their lives together. He was featured recently in a documentary about the wrongfully convicted called "After Innocence," which took the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005.
"I know people shouldn't feel obligated to cover the cost, but when you go to trial it is the state versus you, and it's all of the state's resources being utilized to prosecute you," said Hornoff.
The Exoneration and Innocence Assistance bill is a companion bill to the DNA Actual Innocence Bill that the Legislature passed in 2001. The DNA bill afforded funds to allow prison inmates to verify DNA evidence if they believe they have been wrongly convicted.
The new bill would also allow evidence other than DNA to exonerate an inmate if it clearly shows their innocence. State Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, said the standard in the bill requires that a person be judicially declared innocent. The bill goes further to provide start-up money from the state's general fund. A person could get the average annual wage in Utah for a single wage earner for each year of imprisonment for up to 15 years. The current average is between $34,000 and $35,000 a year.
Bell said there is a trend across the country to have such laws passed to help those who have suffered a miscarriage of justice. So far 21 other state legislatures have passed laws providing some form of financial assistance. In 2004 President Bush approved legislation giving federal exonerees $50,000 for every year spent in prison and an additional $50,000 for each year spent on death row.
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