How A Wrongful Conviction Affects More Than Just Those Convicted
By: Angelique Phipps
Tags: Wrongful Conviction, Injustice, Rap, Celebrity, Criminal Justice Reform

My name is Angelique Phipps and I am the wife of former, No Limit rapper, McKinley “Mac” Phipps Jr. I know all too well the deep impact that a wrongful conviction can have, not only on the convicted, but also on loved ones, friends, and even those who affected by the crime.

On February 21, 2000, my husband, Mac, had a concert at a small nightclub in Slidell, Louisiana. A fight broke out amid a drunken crowd and Barron Victor Jr., a young fan, was shot and ultimately lost his life that night. Despite the confession of another man and a lack of concrete evidence, a 10–2 jury verdict was rendered against Mac in 2001. He has now served twenty years of a thirty-year sentence for killing a man that he never met.

The Trickle-Down Effect

The weight of wrongful convictions can affect far more than just the person sitting behind bars. It affects absolutely everyone connected to that person. Children grow up without that parent present. This can ultimately take a financial toll on the other parent and cause the child to grow up in an impoverished situation, oftentimes destined to perpetuate the cycle of incarceration.

Over the last several years, I have witnessed my stepson grow from a child into a man. While Mac has been in his life as much as humanly possible given the situation, I have watched this young man have a longing for what should have been and a growing bitterness for the world that created this distance between he and his father. I have witnessed my own daughters grow into beautiful teenagers and constantly wish that Mac could be there for every special occasion then wonder if he will even be home by the time that they graduate high school.

The cost of maintaining connection is yet another burden on the shoulders of the loved ones of those incarcerated. The average phone call costs approximately $0.21 per minute. Emails can only be sent by purchasing a package of stamps via a third-party company that is contracted to handle communications. Every email and/or photo attachment costs 1–2 stamps a piece. Video calls are typically $2.50 for only 10 minutes. Visiting in person is costly as well, in terms of travel, time and even the money spent while at the prison. We have been blessed in many ways, but the costs can still be overwhelming. Unfortunately, all of these things make keeping a constant connection an impossibility for many families.

Taxing the Public

I hold the belief that a problem isn’t necessarily a problem for most people until it affects them personally. However, the miscarriage of justice comes at a very high price for taxpayers, too — whether they realize it or not. The costs of wrongful conviction and incarceration in general are extensive, ranging from the cost of pretrial housing to trials to housing an inmate throughout their sentence to the costs of paying exonerees for their years lost behind bars.

The state of Louisiana currently holds the official title of being America’s prison capital. The state has an estimated incarceration rate of 1,052 individuals per 100,000 residents. This means that there are around 50,000 people currently sitting behind bars in Louisiana jails, prisons, and juvenile detention centers. The average cost to house an inmate per year is just under $20,000 per year. That is excluding any possible medical costs that can ensue from health conditions affecting a large percentage of infirmed inmates.

So now let’s use these numbers and apply them to my husband’s case. Mac has served a little over 20 years on a 30-year sentence. If we round up to solid $20,000 per year served, it has cost around $400,000 to this date to house an innocent man. If Mac is forced to serve his entire sentence, it will have cost the state around $600,000 to keep him behind bars. If he is exonerated, he would be entitled to collect a maximum of $250,000 in compensation. Still don’t think wrongful convictions are everyone’s problem?

When Is Enough, Enough?

There are days when I admittedly feel as if I have lost all faith in the thought of truth and justice actually prevailing. I have seen my husband be disappointed over and over to the point of exhaustion. Even as high profile as Mac’s case is and as much media attention that his situation has garnered, there’s a stifling sense of frustration in knowing that everyone in the world can believe in his innocence but it has yet to make a difference to this point.

The district attorney that was in office when Mac was convicted is now serving four years in a federal prison for charges related to utilizing his office for his own personal gain. This same D.A. proudly deemed his part of the world, “St. Slammany”, and even gave out a yearly award for his office’s consistency in holding the record for the highest conviction rate in the United States. I often wonder if Mr. Reed ever thinks about the unbearable toll that this has taken on the lives of the individuals that he has put behind bars and the irreparable damage done to their families. I wonder if he ever thinks about the innocent lives that he has thrown away simply to keep the conviction rate high and his campaign coffers full. I wonder how he manages to sleep at night.

So how do we create change? How can we make a difference? Our fight will not end until my husband sees justice. I will continue to advocate for him and be a voice for the thousands of others who sit behind bars for a crime that they did not commit by shedding light on these injustices. The entire criminal justice system desperately needs an overhaul. Prosecutorial accountability and deep case reviews need to become a new standard.

I wish that I had all of the answers, but I don’t. I wish that the system would magically change overnight and that all of the harm done to the innocent could somehow be magically reversed. I encourage you to educate yourself on the many long-lasting effects on wrongful convictions and how we can collectively create change.

For About Mac’s Case

To read more about Mac’s case and its current status, you can listen to NPR Music’s Louder Than A Riot. You can also learn more here and here.