Standardizing Exoneration Compensation Statutes

Wrongful convictions plague the American criminal justice system and leave lasting, unimaginable harm on the innocent. Since 1989 through February 2025, the National Registry of Exonerations reported 3,658 exonerations: a total of 32,750 years behind bars that were lost. An exoneree, once labeled a defendant, becomes a victim. To right this wrong, some states aim to make a wrongfully convicted citizen whole through compensation. However, in examining the evidence of wrongful conviction compensation, a pervasive issue is uncovered in the American compensation system: victims of wrongful incarceration are deeply undercompensated due to statutory drafting. For those states with compensation statutes, variability in recovery ranges broadly from $5,000 to $200,000 per year of wrongful incarceration. This Article provides the foundation to examine avenues for reform of exoneration compensation statutes that address the balance of state cost compared to the price of liberty while urging legislators to reevaluate compensation statutes and suggesting across-the-board changes.