Foster v. State
Annotate this CaseWilliam Foster was convicted of capital murder, first-degree robbery, and armed criminal action. Many years later, the department of corrections informed Foster that any funds deposited into his prison account to pay for college correspondence courses or an attorney would be subject to seizure by the state, pursuant to the Missouri Incarceration Reimbursement Act (MIRA). Foster filed a petition for declaratory judgment seeking a declaration that MIRA could not be applied to require reimbursement from him for the cost of his incarceration because the criminal acts that resulted in his incarceration were committed prior to the law's enactment. The trial court dismissed Foster's petition. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the facts alleged in Foster's petition were not developed sufficiently to give rise to a ripe controversy because the petition did not allege that Foster would receive sufficient assets to trigger the state's authority to seek reimbursement under MIRA.
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