ANNAPOLIS, Md. — State lawmakers are considering legislation that would address compensating the wrongly imprisoned.
On Wednesday, several men who were imprisoned and later found to be innocent, testified in Annapolis for legislation that would address compensating the wrongly imprisoned.
The current law does call for compensation. This legislation would make compensating the wrongfully convicted an automatic thing, and not just discretionary.
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"It is awful to think about people having been wrongfully convicted have been exonerated and to have so many things just discretionary nothing happened to happen and nothing in fact happening."
The legislation would provide nearly $79,000 for each year a wrongly convicted person spent in prison.
This is based on a five-year average of the state's median household income.
That formula was used last year to compensate five exonerees who spent a total of 120 years in prison.
