As the Florida leg­is­la­ture con­sid­ers a bill that would change Florida’s ​“Clean Hands” pol­i­cy, which denies com­pen­sa­tion for wrong­ful con­vic­tions if the defen­dant had a pri­or felony record, Alabama law­mak­ers are decid­ing whether to grant com­pen­sa­tion to Anthony Ray Hinton (pic­tured), who was exon­er­at­ed in 2015 after spend­ing near­ly 30 years on death row. In Florida, death row exoneree Herman Lindsey told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee about his hav­ing been denied com­pen­sa­tion because of pri­or unre­lat­ed felony con­vic­tions. He spoke about the dif­fi­cul­ty he has faced find­ing hous­ing or a job because the arrest for mur­der is still on his record. He said the ​“Clean Hands” Provision is, ​“basi­cal­ly say­ing, ​‘we can take any­body that has a crim­i­nal record and say let’s false­ly incar­cer­ate him and when he found it wasn’t real­ly him, we can actu­al­ly put him out on the streets and we don’t actu­al­ly even have to wor­ry about it.’ I didn’t receive any apol­o­gy. I didn’t receive any com­pen­sa­tion.” The pro­posed bill would allow com­pen­sa­tion for some exonerees who have pri­or non­vi­o­lent felony con­vic­tions. Sen. Jeff Brandes (R‑St. Petersburg), a sup­port­er of the bill, said, ​“If the state and the peo­ple of the state get it wrong, it shouldn’t mat­ter what indi­vid­u­als have done in their past.” Lindsey said only four of Florida’s 26 death-row exonerees have received com­pen­sa­tion under the Clean Hands Act. ​“Now, per­haps, this might open the door for 10.” Meanwhile, the Alabama Committee on Compensation for Wrongful Incarceration is con­sid­er­ing an appli­ca­tion to grant $1.5 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to Anthony Ray Hinton. The amount is based on the 30 years Hinton was wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed. Two Assistant Attorneys General have writ­ten con­flict­ing let­ters to the com­mit­tee, with one stat­ing, ​“I have found no infor­ma­tion that indi­cates that Mr. Hinton’s appli­ca­tion is dis­qual­i­fied by any of the eli­gi­bil­i­ty excep­tions,” while the oth­er claims, ​“The fact that thir­ty years lat­er dif­fer­ent bal­lis­tic experts are unable to say con­clu­sive­ly that this gun fired the fatal shots, with­out the ben­e­fit of the orig­i­nal test fired pro­jec­tiles used by the orig­i­nal exam­in­ers, is not evi­dence of inno­cence.” Sen. Paul Bussman (R‑Cullman) has intro­duced a bill to com­pen­sate Hinton $1.5 mil­lion, to be paid over a three-year peri­od. He crit­i­cized the notion that a wrong­ly con­vict­ed per­son should be denied com­pen­sa­tion when the state lacks evi­dence to con­vict, say­ing, ​“We can’t con­vict some­one in the court of pub­lic opin­ion. … It has to be in a court of law.”

(S. Cordner, ​“Fla. Lawmakers Looking At Making It Easier For Exonerees To Receive Compensation,” WUSF News, February 24, 2017; K. Faulk, ​“Does for­mer death row inmate Anthony Ray Hinton deserve com­pen­sa­tion?,” AL​.com, February 28, 2017.) See Innocence.

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