WXYZ-TV Detroit reporter Simon Shaykhet has followed Desmond Ricks for years, and he frames this as one of those stories that never really ends when the prison doors open.
Ricks spent roughly 25 years behind bars for a murder he always said he didn’t commit, and Shaykhet notes that a judge ordered his release in 2017 after finding he was wrongfully convicted.
You’d think that would be the end of it: a man gets out, tries to rebuild, and the state admits – at least legally – that it got it wrong. But Shaykhet reports the newest twist is brutal in its own way.
According to Shaykhet, judges have now ordered Ricks to repay more than $1 million back to the State of Michigan. The reason has to do with how Michigan’s wrongful conviction compensation law works when someone also gets paid through a separate lawsuit.
Attorney and legal commentator Steve Lehto, on his “Lehto’s Law” podcast, says this is one of those rare cases where he honestly can “see both sides,” even though it still feels ugly. He walks through the same facts and basically says, “Look, statutes say what they say, and courts enforce them.” But he also argues the human cost here is so enormous that the math starts to feel insulting.
That tension – law vs. fairness – is what makes this story so infuriating to people. It’s not just about money. It’s about what it means when a system wrongfully takes decades of a person’s life, then later tells that person to write a check back.
What Michigan Paid Ricks, And Why It Wasn’t “Extra”
Shaykhet explains that after Ricks was freed, he qualified for compensation under Michigan’s Wrongful Imprisonment Compensation Act, often shortened to WICA. Shaykhet says the program pays about $50,000 per year of wrongful incarceration for people who meet the requirements.
For Ricks, Shaykhet reports, that worked out to about $1.25 million paid by the state. It’s not hard to see why many people would call that reasonable on paper. A million dollars is a life-changing amount for most families.
But Lehto pushes back hard on the idea that it’s “enough.” He points out that Ricks didn’t knowingly sign up to “trade time for money,” like some weird reality show where the prize is waiting at the end. He sat in prison for decades not knowing if he’d ever get out at all.
Lehto also emphasizes something a lot of people miss: the label matters. When the state brands you as a murderer and locks you away, you don’t just lose time.
You lose reputation, relationships, and the ability to live a normal adult life. And prison itself is not some calm, quiet place where a person simply waits out the calendar.
Shaykhet includes emotional context too, reporting that Ricks previously pointed out he lost the chance to watch his two daughters grow up. That’s the sort of loss that can’t be reimbursed in any meaningful way, no matter how many zeros are on a check.
And that’s where this gets messy. Because the state paid Ricks through WICA, but it didn’t stop there.
The Detroit Settlement That Triggered The State’s Demand
Shaykhet reports that after receiving the WICA compensation, Ricks also settled a lawsuit with the City of Detroit for more than $7 million, described as about $7.5 million. Shaykhet says the lawsuit accused detectives in Ricks’s case of corruption, including allegations of falsified evidence involving bullets back in 1992.
Lehto repeats the same core sequence: Ricks gets the state compensation, then later the city pays out a large settlement. And that’s when the state steps back in and says, “We want our money returned.”
According to Shaykhet, Michigan’s wrongful conviction compensation law requires repayment when a “third party” issues compensation. In Ricks’s case, the third party was the City of Detroit.
Ricks tried to fight it. Shaykhet reports that Ricks sued to keep the WICA money, but the court said he could not. A Court of Appeals decision backed the state’s position, and now that million-plus is treated like money that must be returned to the WICA fund.
Lehto doesn’t sugarcoat the legal logic. He says if the statute says repayment is required when someone recovers money from another source, then the courts will enforce that as written. And if people don’t like it, the only real fix is rewriting the law.
Still, even Lehto – who is usually strict about what statutes say – keeps circling back to the same uncomfortable truth: it feels wrong to tell a man who lost 25 years of life that he has to give anything back.
The “Double-Dip” Argument And The State’s Empty Pot Problem
Shaykhet talks with State Senator Joe Bellino from Monroe, and Bellino makes the state’s argument pretty blunt. Bellino says this isn’t as simple as writing checks and moving on, because Michigan’s fund ran low years ago, and lawmakers are trying to keep it viable for future wrongful conviction cases.
Bellino also uses the language a lot of taxpayers will immediately recognize: he calls it “double-dipping.” Shaykhet quotes Bellino saying there’s “no way in the world” he’d vote to allow someone to keep the state money and also keep a massive city settlement on top of it.
Bellino’s framing is basically: Michigan isn’t a “huge bucket” where people should be able to take state compensation and then also recover millions elsewhere, at least not without paying the state portion back into the system.
Lehto says he understands that concern more than people might expect. If the state created a dedicated pot of money for wrongful conviction cases, and that pot runs dry, then the next wrongfully convicted person might get nothing at all.
In that sense, requiring payback when someone wins a settlement elsewhere is like protecting the fund so it can help the next victim too.
But this is where the “both sides” thing can make people mad, because it feels like the state is arguing about budget mechanics while a human being is still carrying the damage.
Here’s the problem: the fund’s health matters, but so does the principle. If the state wrongly took 25 years, then the state shouldn’t be acting like it’s being cheated when a city pays out for the alleged misconduct that helped cause the wrongful conviction.
It’s one thing to prevent an obvious windfall. It’s another thing to make a wrongfully convicted man feel like he’s being audited for surviving.
The Attorney’s View: Rewrite The Law, Because No Check Can Restore A Life
Shaykhet interviews Ricks’s former attorney Wolf Mueller, who describes the situation in harsh, human terms. Mueller says Ricks endured “the worst kind of harm and suffering you can imagine,” and he calls it “25 years in a cage for a crime he did not commit.”
Mueller argues that the state compensation “doesn’t come close” to what was taken from Ricks. And Shaykhet reports Mueller believes the WICA rules should be amended so people like Ricks can keep the state money and also keep whatever they recover from other lawsuits.
Lehto echoes the emotional logic behind that. He says “no amount of money” can truly make up for a quarter-century and an entire adult life lost. He also says $50,000 a year is “peanuts” compared to the harm of wrongful imprisonment.
Lehto adds an important point that cuts against the knee-jerk reaction some people have. Some folks hear “compensation” and think prison is just a place where you get fed and housed, and a check later is some kind of reward.
Lehto basically says that view is fantasy. Wrongful incarceration is a slow-motion destruction of a person’s life, not a paid vacation with concrete walls. And the cruelty is amplified by uncertainty – most wrongfully convicted people don’t know if they’ll ever prove it in time to walk free.
In plain language, Lehto suggests: if you think $8.5 million total for 25 years sounds “huge,” try dividing it by the years and then ask if you’d trade your entire adult life for that amount. Most people wouldn’t, even if they like money, because time is the one thing you can’t buy back.
Where The Story Leaves Ricks, And Why It Still Feels Backward
Shaykhet ends this update by noting that efforts to amend the law have not succeeded so far, but they are still underway. That matters, because it suggests this won’t be the last time Michigan faces this question.
The Court of Appeals ruling, as described by Shaykhet and reviewed by Lehto, creates a hard outcome: Ricks gets money from the state because the state admits a wrongful conviction occurred, then Ricks gets money from Detroit because a settlement suggests serious wrongdoing may have happened in the investigation, and then Michigan turns around and says, “Now repay us.”
Even if the statute technically demands that, it leaves an aftertaste. The state made the mistake. The state’s system allowed a wrongful conviction to stand for decades. And yet the person who lived through it is the one being told to “settle up.”
I get why lawmakers worry about the fund running dry, and Bellino’s point about protecting it for future cases isn’t fake. But there’s also something morally upside-down about a government pulling back compensation from a man whose life was already taken once.
Lehto calls it a rare case where he can see both sides, but he also lands on a simple, hard truth: if Michigan wants to keep a repayment rule, then it should at least make sure the initial compensation is strong enough that it doesn’t feel like a bargain-basement apology.
Because when the state’s “sorry” comes with an invoice later, it stops sounding like justice and starts sounding like bookkeeping.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, John developed a love for the great outdoors early on. With years of experience as a wilderness guide, he’s navigated rugged terrains and unpredictable weather patterns. John is also an avid hunter and fisherman who believes in sustainable living. His focus on practical survival skills, from building shelters to purifying water, reflects his passion for preparedness. When he’s not out in the wild, you can find him sharing his knowledge through writing, hoping to inspire others to embrace self-reliance.
