JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In a reversal stunning both in speed and scope, the Florida Attorney General’s Office said Saturday it would grant a $2 million compensation claim to a man wrongfully convicted in 1976.
The decision represents a 180-degree turn from an opinion First Coast News reported Friday that the agency was denying Nathan Myers’ wrongful compensation claim because he was not “actually innocent.”
In a letter obtained by First Coast News, the AG’s office acknowledges its role “is limited” and that it “cannot second guess decision made by courts.” It added that state law does not “permit [the state Department of Legal Affairs] to reject an application.”
It said it will inform the state Chief Financial Officer that Myers’ application meets the requirements of the statue and is complete.”
As First Coast News reported Friday, the initial Jan. 23 letter from the Attorney General’s Office rejecting Myers’ claim was a stunning speedbump in a process expected to be largely administrative. Florida law allows the wrongfully convicted to be compensated $50,000 per year for each year in prison, with a cap of $2 million.
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Myers and his uncle Clifford Williams were exonerated last March after an exhaustive review by the State Attorney’s Office found their 1976 murder conviction fatally flawed and “substantial credible evidence” they were innocent. A judge approved Myers’ petition for compensation saying met the burden of establishing by clear and convincing evidence that [he] committed neither the act nor the offense that served as the basis for the conviction and incarceration.”
But a Jan. 23 letter from Associate Deputy Attorney General Carolyn Snurkowski said “[Myers] presented no credible, persuasive, exonerating evidence to support his actual innocence,” she wrote, adding “actual innocence … is different than legal innocence.”
This is a developing story, return for updates.
