Trio of wrongfully convicted Kansans seek compensation

Floyd Bledsoe, who spent 16 years in prison for a Jefferson County homicide he didn't commit, urged a Senate committee Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018, to approve a bill creating a compensation system in Kansas for people wrongfully convicted of crimes. Bledsoe's brother confessed to the crime before committing suicide in 2015. (AP Photo, Topeka Capital-Journal, Thad Allton)
Lamonte McIntyre, convicted of a 1994 double homicide in Kansas City, Kan., was incarcerated for 23 years in Kansas prisons before released in October when the case against him was dismissed. (Thad Allton/Topeka Capital-Journal via AP)

TOPEKA ? Three men who were exonerated after spending a combined 55 years behind bars want the state to create a system for compensating the wrongly convicted.

Floyd Bledsoe, Lamonte McIntyre and Richard Jones pleaded Wednesday with the Senate Judiciary Committee to endorse a bill that would pay exonerees $80,000 for each year of imprisonment minus civil judgments resulting from lawsuits. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the bill would require conviction and arrest records related to these cases to be expunged.

Bledsoe was freed in 2015 after spending more than 15 years in prison for a homicide his brother confessed to committing before killing himself. McIntyre served 23 years for a Kansas City, Kansas, double homicide and Jones 17 years for a suburban Kansas City robbery before they were freed last year.