Legal News

Wrongly convicted prisoners get poorer compensation than parolees

By Jason Siegel

Wrongly convicted people are poorly compensated and should receive help finding housing, a cash allowance, clothing and employment counseling like parolees, finds a report by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.

These reforms aim to increase compensation for convicts who were later found innocent, not those freed due to procedural errors in their trial, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Other recommendations included:

• maximum compensation being increased from $36,500 to $50,000 for each year of imprisonment and to $100,000 for every year spent on death row
• allowing people who gave false confessions or forced guilty pleas to seek a court determination of factual innocence
• extending the deadline to sue a trial lawyer for malpractice
• extending the deadline to file compensation claims from six months to two years
• restore funding for the Innocence Projects at the law schools at Santa Clara University and Cal Western University
• create legislation to automatically expunge the record of conviction when their conviction is set aside or vacated and the court makes a finding of actual innocence. Currently, they are required to file a separate legal action for expungement of their conviction before all their rights are restored and they are relieved of the disabilities imposed by a prior conviction.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on February 26, 2008 (boomark / email).