As reporter Andrew Quemere of The Mass Dump writes in a new collaboration with BINJ and HorizonMass, under current state law, “compensation is capped at $1 million regardless of how many years—or decades—a person was wrongfully imprisoned.”
In the feature, Compensation For Wrongful Convictions In Massachusetts: The Fight For Justice And Reform, Radha Natarajan, director of the New England Innocence Project, said that 94 people have been exonerated by state and federal courts in Massachusetts since 1989. “Together,” she said, “they spent more than 1,341 years imprisoned for crimes they did not commit.”
Quemere explains: “Causes of wrongful convictions include misconduct by police and prosecutors, deceptive interrogation tactics that can foster false confessions, unreliable eyewitness identifications, and flawed forensics, according to information provided by the New England Innocence Project.”
Read his new article here to see how lawmakers have stalled an increase to the million-dollar cap and what exoneree advocates are trying to do about it.
