Wisconsin Pays Little Compensation to Wrongfully Convicted

What is a year of life behind bars worth for someone who didn’t commit a crime?

One standard in Wisconsin suggests it’s no more than $5,000.

That’s the maximum compensation the state offers for each year of incarceration to those wrongfully convicted of crimes — capping payouts at $25,000 across all years, with rare exceptions.

Of the 35 states with wrongful conviction compensation laws, Wisconsin is stingier than most.

The state on average pays about $4,200 per year of wrongful incarceration to those who filed and received compensation, according to an analysis of data collected by the National Registry of Exonerations. Meanwhile, Wisconsin is not among the 19 states that offer additional non-monetary compensation for health care, education, counseling and re-entry into society.

The federal government, by contrast, offers up $50,000 per year of incarceration to those wrongfully convicted in the federal system, or up to $100,000 per year for those who were on death row.

“One can be so quickly wrongfully convicted but it takes years to recover,” Fred Saecker, who in 1996 was exonerated by DNA testing for a rape he didn’t commit seven years earlier, testified to a legislative committee in 2017. “When we are released, we are sent out to fail without resources, health care or opportunities.”

In rare cases, the Wisconsin Claims Board can recommend that the Legislature provide additional compensation to exonerees.

Daryl Holloway in 2022 received $1 million plus $100,000 in attorneys’ fees for the 24 years he spent wrongfully convicted of sexual assault charges. Just two years later, Derrick Sanders was awarded the state maximum of $25,000 for 26 years he spent in prison.

Sanders, who in 1993 was wrongfully convicted of murder, had requested more than $5.7 million from the state, citing his innocence, lack of a criminal record at the time of his arrest and his honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy. Although the board recognized “clear and convincing” evidence of his innocence, he was awarded a tiny fraction of that request.

State Sen. LaTonya Johnson, D-Milwaukee, supported past legislation to boost the compensation maximum. She said the current limit falls short of what’s just or helpful to someone reentering society.

“You can’t take away somebody’s entire life and then say, ‘Here’s $25,000, go start over,’” she said. “What does that begin to cover?”

Jarrett Adams was denied compensation in 2009, two years after being released from prison. Adams was a teenager in 2000 when an all-white Jefferson County jury convicted him of sexual assault. A federal appeals court later vacated the conviction, citing insufficient evidence and ineffective counsel. But in denying his claim for compensation, the Wisconsin Claims Board wrote that he lacked “clear and convincing” evidence of his innocence.

Adams went on to earn a law degree and was part of the legal team that successfully argued for a new trial for Richard Beranek, who spent two decades in prison on rape, battery and burglary charges before being exonerated with the help of DNA evidence.

Adams testified in 2015 in support of bipartisan legislation to change compensation practices.

Among other changes, the legislation would have raised the limit on compensation to $1 million for all years of wrongful incarceration while adding additional services to help exonerees reenter society. The legislation unanimously cleared the Assembly but died in the Senate.

“There are no programs designed to help those wrongfully convicted reenter society,” Adams wrote in his testimony. “However, those who are convicted and released from prison are afforded services by the state.”

Years have passed since the last such proposal in the Legislature. Johnson said she would back similar legislation if it returned, but Republican colleagues tell her they lack the appetite.

In the past 20 years, 61 people have had convictions reversed in Wisconsin, collectively spending about 500 years imprisoned. Of that group, 27 applied for compensation, with 15 receiving some amount.

In each denial, the claims board concluded that the wrongfully imprisoned person lacked “clear and convincing” evidence of innocence.

Johnson said she was “shocked” by such denials.

In denying Danny Wilber’s compensation claim following the 2022 reversal of a first-degree murder conviction that sent him to prison for 16 years, the claims board wrote that vacated judgments or exonerations based on legal technicalities such as ineffective counsel or unjust treatment in court do not necessarily prove innocence.

Wilber’s conviction was vacated because the extreme way he was shackled in court could have prejudiced the jury.

Wisconsin law “does not provide compensation to individuals who simply establish that their convictions have been overturned, it provides compensation to individuals who establish their innocence by clear and convincing evidence,” the board wrote.

The claims board is currently considering requests by Robert and David Bintz, who spent 24 years in prison for a murder in Green Bay that they didn’t commit. They seek about $2.1 million each.

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.