If you are wrongly convicted and later exonerated in New Jersey, you may be able to obtain $20,000 for each year of your wrongful incarceration. New Jersey has a special statute designed to indemnify wrongly convicted individuals. So does New York, where there is no limit on the damages that can be awarded by the Court of Claims. But if you were wrongly convicted right next door in Pennsylvania, you are not likely to recover a cent. Unless you can fashion a lawsuit from the events leading to your conviction (and that’s often difficult), there is no statute to provide monetary assistance.   All statutes should enact legislation to compensate the innocent and help them integrate into society.

We’ve compiled some links for those of you who are interested in reading more on this subject:

• A list of articles since 2012 on wrongful conviction and compensation
• A list of results for compensation and wrongful convictions from the UN
• Here are two books from the Pace Law School library
• Prof. Adele Bernhard’s articles on compensation of wrongfully convicted
• Additional IGO, NGO, and Academic results for “wrongful conviction” and compensation