Amendment to compensation law for wrongfully incarcerated goes to DeSantis

The Florida Legislature is sending Gov. Ron DeSantis a bill that would remove the barrier that has kept dozens of wrongfully incarcerated people from receiving the financial compensation that they were entitled to over the past two decades.

That’s because, after several unsuccessful attempts, the House on Tuesday unanimously passed a measure (SB 130) amending a 2008 state law that was designed to provide financial compensation for individuals wrongfully convicted of a crime. The measure previously passed unanimously in the Senate as well.

That 2008 legislation called for eligible exonerees to receive $50,000 for each year they were wrongfully incarcerated, capped at $2 million. However, since its passage, only a handful of exonerees have actually received such compensation, due to a “clean hands” provision barring compensation for people with earlier, unrelated, felonies — the only such restriction of its type in the country.

“Since almost 20 years ago enacting our wrongful incarceration compensation statute, we have 19 exonerees in our state who have lost over 306 years of their freedom, because we as the state of Florida put them in prison,” said Tampa Bay Republican Rep. Traci Koster, who has sponsored this same bill ever since she was elected to the House in 2020.

Koster’s bill (sponsored in the Senate by Northeast Florida Republican Jennifer Bradley) would remove that clean-hands provision. It would extend the filing deadline for those who have been exonerated from 90 days to two years, and allow a wrongfully incarcerated person both to bring a civil lawsuit and file for compensation under the 2008 law.

However, a claimant would have to repay the state if he or she receives monetary awards both through a compensation claim and a civil lawsuit.

In presenting the bill, Koster said she believes  Florida had one of the strongest criminal justice systems “in the world.”

“But just because we have one of the best systems in the world, doesn’t mean it’s perfect,” she added. “And even the best sometimes don’t get it right.”

In making a moral case for the legislation, Volusia County Republican Webster Barnaby cited the case of Joseph in the Bible and former South African President Nelson Mandela as individuals wrongfully incarcerated.

“There are people are wrongfully incarcerated,” he said. “And it’s our job as legislators to be truthful for those poor victims, because that’s what they are, victims, who were wrongfully incarcerated. It’s important for us to see people as people.”

“I’ve been here seven years and I’ve watched people come trying to get compensation, and it’s been a very, very difficult task,” said Tampa Democratic Rep. Dianne Hart. “When we incarcerate somebody for 35 or 40 years of their life, there is no compensation that can compensate for the time that they have spent for being incarcerated.”

91 people

Since 1989, 91 people in Florida have been exonerated or released from incarceration as a result of post-conviction DNA testing, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. That includes Robert DuBoise, who served 37 years on rape and murder charges but was exonerated in 2020 by the Conviction Review Unit of the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office after DNA evidence testing excluded him as the perpetrator.

However, the clean-hands provision of state law precluded him from being eligible for compensation because of two nonviolent property felony crimes which resulted in probation when he was a teenager. He ended up suing the city of Tampa in federal court in 2021 and, ultimately, the city council approved a $14 million settlement for him in 2024.