There are many national and governmental organizations and law schools dedicated to the identification and exoneration of wrongfully convicted persons. But their resources are limited and the demand for their services continues to grow. It can take decades for a falsely accused person to prove their innocence, as the Michael Morton case here in Texas shows. Based on a significant number of studies on wrongful convictions and exonerations, there is convincing evidence that thousands of innocent people are incarcerated in the country`s prison system, serving long prison sentences or awaiting execution. The National Registry of Honorations, a joint project of the University of Michigan School of Law and Northwestern University Law School`s Center on Wrongful Convictions, has released the largest report ever published, concluding that more than 2,000 wrongfully convicted criminals have been exonerated over the past 23 years. The report specifically addresses 873 releases, but adds that there were nearly 1200 other releases; And in Group 873, the average time the wrongly convicted offender spent in prison was 11 years. A summary of the report, which examined landfills between 1989 and 2012, found that: As of December 2018, 362 people in the U.S. had been exonerated due to DNA testing. In almost half of these cases, flawed forensic analysis contributed to the original conviction.

[2] And while state and local officials are responsible for most unlawful convictions for “official misconduct,” most offer no meaningful compensation to those wrongfully convicted. Mark Godsey, director of the Global Wrongful Convictions Study, recently reported on salon.com that only 27 states offer “some level of compensation for wrongfully convicted persons.” Godsey pointed to a 2007 New York Times report based on interviews with 137 acquitted people, which found that more than half of them were “struggling—drifting from job to job, depending on others for placement, or struggling with deep emotional scars. More than two dozen ended up in jail or were addicted to drugs or alcohol. Godsey also pointed to a 2009 report by the Innocence Project, which found that 40 percent of acquitted people received no compensation from the 23 states that failed to compensate those they wrongfully convicted. A false conviction has many social, economic and psychological consequences for people who are then exonerated, especially for death row. [5] While all releases are concerning, it is these 101 death sentences that are the most appalling. Presumably, while 101 prisoners sentenced to death were exonerated between 1989 and 2012, dozens more innocent people have been executed since executions resumed in that country in January 1977. Minnesota law allowed exempt individuals to claim compensation of up to $100,000 a year in prison. Financial compensation does not make up for lost time, but it can help defendants get back on their feet after years behind bars. In another blow to wrongfully convicted people, state courts recently declared part of the compensation law unconstitutional and revoked the rights of many acquitted people. On September 27, 2017, the Minnesota Supreme Court declared the state compensation law “unconstitutional.” The judgment declared a large part of the compensation law invalid due to a legal formality. Under the old law, an acquitted person could only claim compensation if the prosecutor dismissed the charge after the conviction was quashed.

The Supreme Court declared this section of the law unconstitutional. Even worse, eleven of the charges involved cases in which no crime had been committed. For example, “five defendants were convicted of killing or seriously injuring infants by shaking them in circumstances that recent evidence has shown impossible,” while “six defendants were convicted of arson or arson, based on forensic evidence now recognized as worthless” (lending credibility to the oft-repeated accusations that the State of Texas executed a man. innocent in 2004 when he convicted Cameron Todd Willingham of arson of his three children). And finally, there are “a small number of exculpators in whom suicide and accidental death have been wrongly treated as homicides. The Registry concluded that there will likely be “more false convictions of all kinds.” Posthumous exoneration (PH) – The exoneration of a person after that person`s death, including cases where a living co-accused was exonerated in circumstances that clearly indicate that the deceased person would have been exonerated had they been alive. The latest bill on the subject, House Bill 3677, aims to “correct” the Supreme Court`s decision to ensure that future acquitted offenders can still be eligible for compensation under Minnesota law. HB 3677 has already been reviewed by a major committee and has been referred to the Public Safety and Finance Committee for review. Exempt people in Minnesota could again seek compensation for their time in jail while being wrongfully convicted if the new law passes. The term “discharge” is also used in criminal law to indicate that bail has been enforced, completed and exonerated. The judge orders that the bail be released; The court clerk stamps the original power of attorney for bail and indicates that it is a court order.

However, the new law not only eliminates the obligation to remove the prosecutor, but also excludes a group of people from the compensation claim. On the basis of this decision, exculpants from the State of Minnesota whose convictions have been overturned or quashed would no longer be entitled to compensation.