LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Michael VonAllmen scratched his dog behind the ears on his front yard. He bought his forever home three years ago. He had a career as a union plumber, one he started in his mid-thirties. Though he could have had an earlier start.
A spider plant on his front porch, a housewarming gift from his first house purchase in 1997, marked three years after he got out of prison for a crime he never committed.
In 1981, he was arrested for rape because he looked like the man who actually committed the crime.
When police showed VonAllmen the wanted sketch, he thought it looked like him even though he knew it wasn't.
"Sad part was, I was the only big curly-headed looking guy who was in the room at the time. Somebody was gonna pay for that assault. They were all pointing the finger at me," he said.
For 16 years, he was on parole. But even as he worked to clear his name, leading to a certificate of innocence in 2010, not everyone believed him. "Some folks that swore and would only want me to do their plumbing, abandoned me completely," VonAllmen said.
"When somebody's exonerated in the state of Kentucky, they leave prison with less support than somebody who's actually guilty," Suzanne Hopf, an attorney with The Innocence Project, said.
She hoped Kentucky would change that with HB 178.
"For the past three years, we've been working on a wrongful conviction compensation statute so that we could assure that our exonerees received some sort of compensation after they'd been wrongfully convicted and illegally imprisoned," she said.
The proposed legislation would have paid exonerees $65,000 for every year they spent unlawfully in prison, and provided money for reintegration services like therapy, education and job training.
But the bill failed to pass out of a house committee on budgets.
Without state assistance and 11 years of missed income, VonAllmen fell behind his younger brothers and sisters in life.
"They bought their forever homes decades ago," he said.
An opportunity he could have had if he was paid back for the years taken from him.
However, he's still grateful for one thing that survived the 43 years he's fought against the injustice.
"A full family," VonAllmen said, "a full loving family."
One of HB 178's sponsors, Representative Jason Nemes, said the Appropriations and Budget Committee is reviewing the cost of the bill. He believes the bipartisan-supported legislation will pass next year.
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