GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A photograph at the Michigan Innocence Clinic in Ann Arbor shows a smiling Gov. Rick Snyder after he signed the law that promised to pay the state's wrongfully convicted $50,000 for every year they spent in prison.
Standing just to Snyder's left is Lorinda Swain, the Calhoun County mom cleared of molesting her stepson after he recanted his story.
In West Michigan, the list of exonerees whose requests for money are being fought by the state includes some other well-known names:
There's Tom Foley, who's now living in Kentwood, exonerated in the 2009 murder of his wife DeeDee after new witnesses came forward. He's looking for $78,000.
Dennis Tomasik of Comstock Park, locked up for nine years after a troubled neighbor boy accused him of molesting him hundreds of times. The state is fighting his $450,000 claim after a jury found him not guilty in a second trial.