CHARLESTON — A West Virginia man who was wrongly convicted of murder and finally released from prison is now awaiting a decision by the Legislative Claims Commission on money for damages for being forced to endure prison for 14 years.
Charles Jason Lively was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder and first-degree arson in 2007 after Dr. Ebb K. "Doc" Whitley died on March 15, 2005, in a house fire.
Earlier this month, he went before the Legislative Claims Commission asking for damages to be approved by the commission to pay him for what he endured for the better part of his adult life.
Lively is represented by Adam Dec of Baker Botts. The firm has been representing Lively pro bono.
The commission is likely to make a decision in Lively's damages case before the end of November. If the commission recommends an amount to be awarded, the state legislator will then have to vote on that before Lively would be able to receive any money for his damages.
Back in 2005, Lively was accused of setting the fire, however, a fire expert hired later discovered the fire was not arson. Testing was then completed by another state expert to corroborate the first expert's findings.
Attorneys with West Virginia's Innocence Project attorneys began assisting Lively with his case and in June 2018, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed Lively to appeal the denial of his previous habeas petition due to his trial attorney's failure to investigate the fire's cause.
Lively's conviction was then vacated on Sept. 23, 2020, after 14 years in prison — a decade of which was in solitary confinement.
The West Virginia Attorney General's office asked Dr. Glen Jackson to review the fire evidence and supported Dr. Craig Beyler's conclusion that the fire likely originated below the subfloor of the upstairs bedroom, contradicting the theory of toluene use that had been pointed to at Lively's trial.
In January 2020, Jackson's follow-up report discredited the presence of toluene, stating it resulted from the burning process, not accelerants like charcoal fluid or gasoline.
The prosecutor in Lively's case, Sid Bell, then acknowledged that the state's evidence was false and misleading based on Jackson's findings.
In a July 2020 letter to then-Prosecuting Attorney Emily K. Miller, now an administrative law judge, Bell asked Miller to do the right thing and work for Lively's release.
Bell wrote in the letter that a prosecutor's highest duty to to do what is right.
"Lively has remained in prison for two years after two of the leading experts in the field have told us the fire that caused Dr. Whitley's death was not arson but was an accidental electrical fire," Bell wrote. "I have acknowledged that my testimony at the habeas hearing the cause and origin of the fire. He was not. Dr. Beyler is strongly of the opinion that the fire could not have been deliberately set and was clearly an electrical fire that started between the bedroom floor and the living room ceiling."
Bell wrote in the letter that he hoped Miller would promptly take action regarding Lively.
Lively's attorneys were unable to comment on the matter due to the pending litigation.