Earlier this year(2004), Virginia passed a law that compensates wrongly convicted people 90 percent of the state's annual per capita income -- or about $30,000 -- for up to 20 years. Alabama pays a minimum of $50,000 for every year of incarceration. New Jersey provides up to $20,000 per year, or twice the person's pre-prison salary, whichever is greater. Like Maryland, the District has a law that allows compensation but offers no specific guidelines.
The wrongfully convicted can sue states without compensation laws, but such cases are usually time-consuming and difficult to win, legal experts said. As for suing judges, juries, prosecutors and police who were involved in a wrongful conviction, a plaintiff would have to prove malicious misconduct, such as destroying or planting evidence or taking a bribe in return for a guilty verdict, said Michael Milleman, a law professor at the University of Maryland.
The other option is to get the state's legislature to pass an individual compensation bill. "But getting a private bill is a political process, and someone who deserves it might not get it," said Adele Bernhard, a law professor at Pace University who has studied compensation laws. "It depends on what senator you know."
When Virginia lawmakers took up the case of Marvin Lamont Anderson last year, they weren't sure what the state should pay.
He spent 15 years in prison before DNA evidence exonerated him of rape and sodomy charges in 2001. At the time of his arrest, he was 18 years old, with dreams of becoming a firefighter. He was sentenced to 210 years.
Other inmates "wanted to mess me up real bad," he said. "They'd threaten me, try to get me to initiate a fight, to start something to keep me from getting out. . . . You're always looking over your shoulder."
After hearing his story, some legislators thought that he should get as much as $1.5 million. Others said he merited a fraction of that. Finally, they arrived at a lump sum of $200,000 and about $2,000 a month for the rest of his life.
After Anderson's case, the Virginia legislature was accused of playing racial politics with the payouts. Anderson, who is black, and his family said that while the legislature dragged its feet on his case, it approved with little discussion $750,000 for a white man who had spent 11 years in prison -- four years less than Anderson.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4412-2004Oct3.html
States are passing these compensatuon laws to keep from being sued for wrongful convictions, knowing full well that juries are a lot more compassionate than to grant a person a paltry $20,000 per year of freedom lost.
Missouri - $36,500 per year of freedom lost.