New Wrongful Conviction Settlement Process Continues to Unfold in Wicomico

Legislative changes during the FY26 budget deliberations shifted a portion of the cost burden for wrongful convictions on to counties. With the new law in affect, counties are now picking up the settlement costs for a process they have no control over.

A recent Maryland Matters article highlighted some of the next steps in a novel move by the State to shift some of the costs of wrongful conviction settlements onto county governments. As previously covered on Conduit Street this is a move to make county governments pay for the cost of the State making a mistake in their own processes to which counties have no role or control.

One of the first settlements to be owed since the enactment of the new law is falling on Wicomico County, which is a jurisdiction that is considered resource scarce enough to merit disparity grant funding from the state. The amount required from the county is just shy of $300K. According to Maryland Matters, by the end of the third fiscal quarter of 2025, the settlement amounts already totaled about $6.5M, which under the new structure would put more around $3.25M of that cost on to counties despite no role in the process, the hearings, and having no way to effectively budget for these costs.

This is a new process that has come under a great deal of scrutiny, as other costs have been shifted to counties to try and make up for some of the State’s fiscal trouble, including costs to operate the State Department of Assessments and Taxation (SDAT), teacher pension costs, and the like.

The discussion will continue at the 2025 MACo Winter Conference with the panel session, “Problematic Policy: Passing the Buck on Wrongful Convictions.” This will take place Wednesday, December 10, 2025; 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Hotel in Cambridge, MD.