Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour signed a new state law yesterday compensating the wrongfully convicted upon their release. The law pays the exonerated $50,000 for each year they served in prison after being convicted of a crime they didn't commit – up to a maximum of $500,000. Unlike some other states, however, the new law does not provide any services – such as job training, health care or counseling – upon exoneration. Read the full text of the law here.
Mississippi is the 26th state in the U.S. to pass a law compensating the wrongfully convicted. Efforts are also underway to pass new compensation bills in Nebraska and New Jersey and to improve an existing bill in Texas. Although Georgia does not have a law compensating the exonerated, state lawmakers have been working in recent weeks to individually compensate John Jerome White, who spent more than two decades in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
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