NCIP Supervising Attorney Paige Kaneb and NCIP Client Darwin Crabtree embrace after the March 16 CalVCB hearing in Sacramento.
On March 16, Northern California Innocence Project client Darwin Crabtree was granted compensation by the California Victim Compensation Board (CalVCB) for the nearly 10 years he spent in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. This has been a multi-decade odyssey for Crabtree and his family — he was convicted in 1991 and released in 2001 though it wasn’t until 2017 that those convicted in California no longer in custody could challenge their convictions. This change, through an NCIP-supported law, allowed the court to vacate Crabtree’s conviction in 2018. During the recent CalVCB board meeting, he said that after a long and arduous process, “this represents the end – and I am thankful for that.”
Members of the NCIP staff with Darwin Crabtree and his wife Sandra.
NCIP Supervising Attorney Paige Kaneb addressed the CalVCB board members and those in attendance and remarked how Crabtree endured this process with “incredible grace” until the law was finally changed. “Everything pointed to his innocence and we had just one problem — he had already served his time. He had done his time in prison, he had served his parole. When he came to us with all of this evidence, the law required that you have to have standing to challenge your wrongful conviction by being in custody still. We had to ask him to do the impossible and that was to keep waiting.” Kaneb continued by stating that nothing will ever change what Crabtree endured, “but we do at least get to compensate him for his time erroneously convicted.”
Deputy Attorney General Jessica Leal stated that the Attorney General had no objections to granting compensation and that Leal was “personally glad to see this day come for Mr. Crabtree.” The CalVCB board members unanimously approved the motion for compensation.
Crabtree is the fifth NCIP client that has received compensation from the state of California in the last 12 months. These recent grants of compensation are based on a California law that was recently amended based on efforts of NCIP and the California Innocence Coalition to make compensation statutes fairer.
Darwin and Sandra Crabtree