Making amends for jailing the innocent

Once the cell doors lock on innocent people, it can take years for the truth to emerge. It may come out if the real criminal confesses, or via a DNA sample, or through sheer persistence in the legal system.

But after their release from prison, does the government owe these people anything except freedom - something to atone for the years of separation from family, friends, work - all that exists beyond the walls and barbed wire?

In most states, the answer so far has been no.

But now, after a spate of DNA-linked exonerations and a couple of big jury awards tied to prosecutorial misconduct, some momentum is building to improve compensation. In Massachusetts and Missouri, legislators are spearheading efforts to pay people for the years of lost freedom. "Until recently, the problem of wrongful convictions wasn't really on the legislative agenda," says Locke Bowman of the University of Chicago's MacArthur Justice Center. "It's more so now than at any time in my memory, as a result of the attention that's been given to the number of wrongful death-row convictions."

With the relatively new phenomenon of DNA testing, the list of cases in which innocence can be proved continues to grow. And with each new exoneration, states and their citizens are asking hard questions about the death penalty, government's responsibility to deter mistakes, and how to try to right a terrible wrong.

"It should be costly when things like this occur, so that people have incentives to take precautions to prevent them from occurring again," says Mr. Bowman.

Occasionally, the falsely imprisoned sue for damages on grounds of civil rights violations or prosecutorial misdeeds. In Illinois last spring, a group known as the Ford Heights Four was awarded a record $36 million in a wrongful-prosecution lawsuit against Cook County. Between them, Dennis Williams, Kenneth Adams, William Rainge, and Verneal Jimerson had spent 65 years in jail. Two of them had been sentenced to die.

But so far, the price of mistakes is paid primarily by the innocents themselves. Successful lawsuits are rare because of the immunities and defenses available to police and prosecutors.

"It is not easy to sue and prevail," says James McCloskey, founder of Centurion Ministries, a group in Princeton, N.J., that has helped free 20 people across the US. He is considering the possibility of a civil suit on behalf of Ellen Reasonover, who spent nearly 17 years in a Missouri prison for murder. She was released in August when a judge ruled the prosecution had suppressed evidence that supported her claim of innocence.

Fourteen states do have indemnification laws, but awards often are capped. In California, for instance, the most a person can get is $10,000 - a limit set in 1941. Maine allows up to $300,000, and other states designate a maximum for each year of imprisonment. Without a specific appeal to Congress, the cap for compensation of wrongful conviction for a federal crime is $5,000.

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