Relief Delayed Again for Wrongly Convicted Wisconsinites 

Jail (Pixabay License)

In December, Gabriel Lugo gave testimony to a state Assembly committee about his time in prison before he was exonerated of the crime for which he served more than a decade. He’d been serving his sentence in the Waupun Correctional Institution when his conviction was finally overturned.

In a statement read by an attorney, Lugo said some correctional officers treated him as less than human and that prison lockdowns severely restricted his movement and made it hard for his family members to visit him.

Living conditions at Waupun generated headlines in 2023 and 2024 about unsanitary facilities and lack of medical care. Lugo finally got out of prison in 2023, when he was exonerated of the crime he’d been convicted of in 2009.

Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek) wrote in a column in December that Lugo is her constituent and his case prompted her to co-author a reform bill with Wanggaard and Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee). Under the amended Assembly bill, wrongly convicted people who were released after Jan. 1, 2015 — like Lugo — and had already received compensation would have been able to petition for more money. But the bill did not pass the Legislature before its session ended this month.

On Friday, Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), chair of the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety, who announced his retirement earlier this month, expressed frustration in a newsletter about the bill not passing the Legislature despite multiple attempts. He said that “people move the goalposts and come up with new (and baseless) reasons for not supporting it.”

While lawmakers in committees in both chambers voted to advance wrongful conviction compensation bills, neither chamber brought the issue up for a vote.

It was not the first time the effort had failed. Bills that aimed to boost compensation for wrongly convicted people did not pass in 2016, 2017 or 2020.

“The failure to get this common-sense bill done has been frustrating,” Wanggaard said.

In testimony, Wanggaard called the Senate’s measure a “long-overdue bill” that would update an outdated law.

The proposed reform measure aimed to provide an eligible wrongly convicted person with $50,000 per year of imprisonment, up to a maximum of $1 million. The bill would also allow a person released on the basis of a claim of innocence to petition the court for an order directing the Department of Corrections to create a transition-to-release plan.

Currently, the Wisconsin Claims Board decides whether a person meets the standards for compensation for wrongful imprisonment. The evidence of the person’s innocence must be “clear and convincing,” and the person must not have contributed to bring about their conviction and imprisonment. The board’s five members come from the Department of Justice, the Department of Administration, the Office of the Governor, the Wisconsin Senate and the Wisconsin Assembly.

The claims board can award $5,000 per year of imprisonment but with a total cap of $25,000, and it has also awarded attorney fees. The board can recommend a higher award to the Legislature. According to Rodriguez, since 1990, seven people have received recommendations for compensation above the $25,000 cap.

Wanggaard’s chief of staff, Scott Kelly, said in an emailed statement to the Examiner, “I don’t know what the price of someone’s freedom is, taking away their family, their support system, their job. But Senator Wanggaard knows it’s not $5,000 a year, with a maximum of $25,000.”

The board awarded Lugo the full $25,000 allowed under the law, as well as about $77,000 in attorney fees. The board recommended that the Legislature award Lugo an additional $750,000. The vote was 3-2, with Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Gillett) and Rep. Alex Dallman (R-Markesan) dissenting.

The Wisconsin Innocence Project, the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Board of Governors and the Wisconsin Catholic Conference have given testimony supportive of increasing compensation for wrongly convicted people. Christopher Lau of the Wisconsin Innocence Project testified that the project has helped exonerate more than 30 people, and that many clients struggle to re-enter society. Last year, the Examiner reported on the struggles that exonerated brothers Robert and David Bintz have experienced after leaving prison in 2024.

“After years of wrongful imprisonment, our clients leave prison without savings, without employment, and often, without a place to call home,” Lau said. They also leave with medical ailments and emotional trauma, he said.

Rodriguez’s office said that an amendment to the Assembly bill followed discussions with Assembly lawmakers to address concerns she had heard from them and from the Department of Administration. But Rodriguez said it became clear that more discussions were needed as the legislative session wound down.

Rodriguez is optimistic that the bill can pass in the next session, she told the Wisconsin Examiner. She thinks “we can get to the finish line with enough time to work out any issues” when the Legislature reconvenes, and “finally update this process.”

Relief delayed again for wrongly convicted Wisconsinites  was originally published by Wisconsin Examiner.