Video: State Supreme Court to Have Say on Compensation for Prison Time

JACKSON, Miss. (WCBI) -It’s up to the Mississippi Supreme Court to decide if Tyler Edmonds will be paid for the prison time he served on a wrongful conviction.

Attorney Jim Waide argued Edmonds’ appeal of a lower court ruling before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Waide says Edmonds is entitled to the $50,000 a year for each year spent behind bars.

Edmonds was convicted largely on a confession he gave claiming he shot his sister’s husband. That conviction was tossed after it came out that Edmonds lied in that confession, because he had been told his sister would be get the death penalty if she were convicted, and that he would not get in trouble because he was only 14 at the time.

Edmonds sought $200,000 in compensation in Oktibbeha Circuit Court but was denied, because the judge said the false confession led to his conviction.

Waide argued that that reasoning is flawed because Edmonds was coerced into giving the false confession; therefore, it should not be a deciding factor.

No time frame has been set for the high court ruling.