Last week, I focused on the correction to state law that is needed for an upcoming session of the General Assembly.  The correction is needed because a new Supreme Court ruling essentially says that state DNA forensic lab technicians would be required to testify in every one of the 100,000+ cases involving every piece of evidence they process or instruments they calibrate each year.
The ensuing court backlog could essentially create a miscarriage of justice by gumming up the court system.  In order to be effective for society, criminal courts must be quick enough to have a reasonable nexus of time between the crime and criminal sentence.
The other end of the scale is that when a person is wrongly sentenced, they should have reasonably quick access to the restitution which is due those who have paid a debt they never owed.

Ironically, Virginia is wrestling with one of those cases right now and there are some, myself included, who believe it should also be addressed in the upcoming one day special session.
Arthur Whitfield, 55, of Norfolk was wrongly convicted for two rapes in 1981 based on witness identification.  DNA tests, however, irrefutably proved Whitfield was not the assailant in either case. Whitfield was released from prison after 22 years, and this past April, Governor Kaine pardoned him, erasing his conviction, removing his name from the state’s sex offender registry and taking him off probation.  
The General Assembly long ago provided for wrongfully imprisoned persons to apply for a $15,000 transition grant to help them get their life in order upon their long overdue release from prison.  This is just a transition amount for those who have served time for a crime they clearly did not commit to find a place to live, get a job and become again a productive member of society.  The grant is not available to someone who was released on a “technicality” or any other legal reason.
Unfortunately, the law is written in such a way that only those people who are currently behind bars can receive such transition grants, i.e. innocent people who are wrongfully imprisoned must stay in prison in order to receive these grants.  Since Whitfield is no longer in prison – which he shouldn’t be – he is not eligible to receive this transition grant.
Mr. Whitfield – who is remarkably free of bitterness -- has a job but is struggling with bills and has no car.  His water and gas are about to be cut off.