Mark Schand, who served 27 years for murder before his conviction was overturned, is fighting for $500K compensation

Mark Schand, whose murder conviction was overturned after 27 years, describes costs of incarceration

WINDSOR, Conn. -- Mark Schand spent 26 years, 11 months and 25 days behind bars before his conviction in a 1986 Springfield murder was overturned in 2013.

Now, with his freedom won, he is fighting for $500,000 from the state, under Massachusetts' wrongful conviction compensation law.

Schand, 52, has spent half his life in prison and suffered the immediate consequences - confinement, decades of separation from his family, and the title of "convicted murderer," all while he continued to maintain his innocence.

But his conviction also came with devastating financial costs, he said at an interview in his Windsor, Conn. home. 27 years with no income or career advancement. The steady expense of his wife Mia's weekly trips to visit him and pay for his prison commissary. And, even after his release, the persistence of his conviction on some criminal background checks, which he said cost him job opportunities.

"I'm sure I wouldn't be working a $14, $15 an hour job at this point in my life. I'm 200 percent sure that's because of my incarceration," Schand said. "I don't think that's OK. I definitely feel that I was held back."

Schand was convicted in the 1986 killing of Victoria Seymour, outside Springfield's former After Five lounge, and languished in prison as local defense attorneys John and Linda Thompson launched a decades-long legal campaign to clear his name.

Mia Schand, his wife, had testified at the original trial that Schand was with her at the time of the shooting. And in 2010 the innocence organization Centurion Ministries uncovered new evidence to support that claim. In 2013, Schand was granted a new trial after eyewitness Anthony Cooke recanted his identification of Schand, and three new witnesses testified that he was not at the club that night.

Then-Hampden County District Attorney Mark Mastroianni, who is now a federal judge, dropped the murder charge, sparing Schand another trial and clearing the path for his return home.

Massachusetts passed its wrongful conviction compensation law in 2004, allowing people imprisoned for false felony convictions to receive up to $500,000 in compensation. The law, which applied retroactively to people convicted before its enactment, was passed as the increased prevalence of DNA testing brought wrongful conviction cases into the public spotlight.

The District of Columbia and 29 other states also have wrongful conviction compensation statutes, according to the Innocence Project. Over 60 convicts have applied for relief under Massachusetts' law, and the state has paid out $8.34 million to those found wrongfully convicted.

The path to compensation can be lengthy and complicated. While convictions can be vacated due to prosecutorial misconduct and errors in the court system, those cases are not necessarily eligible for compensation; rather, prisoners must prove their innocence to receive state money, according to the law. And cases can take a long time to resolve, with two years allowed for evidence discovery under the trial schedule used for compensation cases.

"This process is designed to last at least three years," said Schand's attorney John Thompson. "That means that the guy who's coming out of prison has to wait at least three years to get the benefits from this, if he ever gets them."

Only people who have received full pardons or had their convictions overturned on grounds that tend to establish innocence are eligible for compensation, according to the law. Once proving their eligibility in court, claimants then head to trial, where they must prove their innocence to receive money.

Many claims in Massachusetts are settled; others are dismissed or withdrawn. Only one person - Ulysses Charles, who served 17 years before DNA evidence cleared him of rape and robbery charges in 2001 - has taken a compensation claim to trial and won.

For Schand, who filed for financial relief in January 2014, the case has stretched on for 2 1/2 years, and is part of a legal battle that has extended long after his release from prison in 2013. Schand has also filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Springfield, the City of Hartford and the Hampden County District Attorney's Office.

The Attorney General's Office opposed Schand's claim of eligibility, arguing in court that the state had never conceded his innocence and that the testimony of the new eyewitnesses was questionable. But in Oct. 2014, Hampden Superior Court Justice Tina Page ruled that Schand could seek financial relief.

"The newly discovered evidence in this case tends to substantiate Schand's defenses at trial of misidentification and alibi," Page wrote in her decision. "Witness testimony that Schand was not present at the scene of the homicide Is evidence that another party was, in fact, responsible for the shooting death of Victoria Seymour."

Since then, the state and Schand's attorneys have gone back and forth on evidence discovery, leading up to a trial or possible settlement.

Schand now lives with his wife on a tree-lined street in Windsor, Conn., and the last three years have been an abrupt shift to suburban normalcy. His three children are grown; he has four grandchildren, all born while he was in prison. He works in a Colt factory, making gun components, and Mia, his wife, is a stylist at a hair salon.

"I think about it every day, but I'm going about my life," Schand said. "There was a time when I thought I would never get out."

Shand's time in prison meant that Mia raised their family on a single income. She spent about $200 per week visiting and supporting him, she said, from funding his prison commissary account to the cost of gas and tolls when driving from Connecticut to the Eastern Mass. prisons where he was held.

"It was a big sacrifice," she said. "Every week I went to see him. It was really costly."

Schand earned about 16 college credits during his first years in prison, studying with community college professors under a federal Pell grant program for inmates. But prisoners were banned from using the Pell program under the federal 1994 crime bill, and Schand spend the last 19 years of his sentence without higher education.

And, counterintuitively, Schand was not eligible for the state Department of Corrections' post-release services, which include job training and job placement programs. Those services are only for prisoners who have served their full terms, not those whose charges are vacated.

His conviction continued to haunt him economically even after charges were dropped. Though he has found steady work since he got out, at first the charge continued to pop up on employer background checks, leading to missed job opportunities and canceled interviews.

"The whole wrongfully convicted thing didn't catch on in the computers and didn't catch up to the system," Schand said. "It was difficult convincing them I was wrongfully convicted."

Before he was arrested, Schand wanted to own a restaurant franchise, following in the footsteps of his father, a small businessman who owned grocery and liquor stores, clubs and tenement buildings in Brooklyn, Queens and Hartford.

He still has that dream, he said, though it has been further delayed by the long path to financial compensation.

"It's their law. They made it up. But then they turn around and fight you for it," Schand said. "You have to prove you're innocent."