When an innocent person is convicted of a crime, that person is robbed of his freedom, his family, and his livelihood to be put through the unique horror of prison. To rectify the injustice, states must compensate the exonerated for the time they were forced to spend in prison.

Prison experience consists of a near-complete loss of rights, the constant threat of violence and rape, degradation, and hopelessness. When we convict the innocent, we wrongfully deny these people their lives, their families, and their futures, only to thrust them into a years-long nightmare. Many have even been sentenced to death.

Unfortunately, the nightmare doesn't end with exoneration. Many of the exonerated struggle to find safe shelter, employment, and medical care. Society fails those it wrongfully imprisons, and society has an obligation to compensate them for this injustice.

Existing state processes for compensating the exonerated are typically complicated, difficult, and insufficient. States should pass statutes that provide these innocent people a straightforward and just process for providing compensation, offering either a fixed sum or a range of recovery for each year spent in prison.

Such a system allows those who have been wrongfully imprisoned to receive compensation without the added burden of navigating an uncertain, complicated and costly process.

Yes. Nineteen states, including Alabama, California, Illinois, and Tennessee have compensation statutes which allow the wrongfully convicted to seek damage awards in various amounts. In the 2004 Justice For All Act, Congress increased the amount of compensation for those wrongfully convicted of federal crimes to up to $100,000 a year for those exonerated from death row, and $50,000 a year for those not on death row.

By ensuring compensation to those who are wrongfully convicted, a state can take an important step toward guaranteeing that its criminal justice system achieves justice in all cases.