Putting a dollar value on wrongful jail time

The "Get Out of Jail Free" card is one of the most prized acquisitions in the game Monopoly. But in real life, a growing number of falsely imprisoned individuals - exonerated and released largely on the basis of DNA evidence - want something more: to get out of jail with compensation.

Increasingly, state legislatures are heeding their pleas. In May, Oklahoma, Texas, and Alabama passed laws that either allowed for state reparations to the wrongly imprisoned or raised the cap on the maximum payout.

Public sympathy for such individuals, particularly in the wake of high-profile news stories, tends to be high. But some critics say that awarding compensation is tantamount to admitting a state's culpability. Even those who support the idea of reparations find themselves faced with a Solomonic challenge: how to put a price tag on unwarranted years in jail.

"I tell them, go to a maximum-security prison, imagine yourself in there, and decide just what you'd be willing to be paid an hour or a week to be there, to not see your kids, to not attend the funerals of your grandparents or the weddings of your brothers and sisters," says Kevin Green, an exonerated prisoner who has testified at hearings on compensation bills.

Mr. Green was convicted by a California court in 1980 of raping and beating his nine-months-pregnant wife and causing the death of the unborn child. Sixteen years later, he was released from prison when a serial killer confessed and DNA testing proved his guilt. A 1999 California law provided him with $100 per day for every day he was incarcerated in two of the state's most notorious prisons. Soon thereafter, the law was broadened to include all exonerated prisoners.

High-profile cases

Both the Oklahoma and Texas bills were also prompted by recent cases. In Oklahoma, Jeff Pierce was released last month after serving 15 years of a 65-year sentence for a rape that DNA showed he did not commit. And in Texas, seven individuals have been exonerated in the past two years. One of them, Anthony Robinson, spent 10 years in prison on a rape charge of which DNA evidence cleared him. He once aspired to be a lawyer; now, with a prison record, he works as a laborer.

In all, 16 states have compensation programs for exonerated prisoners, though a handful, like Wisconsin's, date to the 1970s and have low caps. In the Badger State, a prisoner can collect no more than $25,000, plus lawyer's fees.

Most states cap compensation at no more than $300,000. Two - New York and West Virginia - have no limit. Exonerated prisoners and proponents of compensation laws decry the often-stingy payouts, saying they barely cover lost wages, much less intangibles like lost freedom or being falsely labeled a killer.

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