The New York Times inves­ti­gat­ed the post-exon­er­a­tion lives of the 206 for­mer inmates who were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and released through DNA evi­dence. Fifty-three of the cas­es involved mur­der con­vic­tions, and more than 25% of those wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed had giv­en a false con­fes­sion or incrim­i­nat­ing state­ment. Working from a list pro­vid­ed by the Innocence Project, the Times gath­ered infor­ma­tion on 137 of the 206 exonerees and were able to inter­view 115 of those. They found that most DNA-exonerees have ​“strug­gled to keep jobs, pay for health care, rebuild fam­i­ly ties and shed the psy­cho­log­i­cal effects of years of ques­tion­able or wrong­ful impris­on­ment.” Lack of ade­quate finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion only exac­er­bates the hard­ships after release.

Compensation for wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tion varies by state. Of the cas­es the Times inves­ti­gat­ed, near­ly 40% received no com­pen­sa­tion for their time in prison, almost half received at least $50,000 for each year in prison, and the remain­der were con­vict­ed in states that offer no com­pen­sa­tion for wrong­ful impris­on­ment. The aver­age time spent in prison for a wrong­ful con­vic­tion was 12 years. Many had to wait almost 2 years before receiv­ing com­pen­sa­tion, and even then, they received less gov­ern­ment ser­vices than paroled pris­on­ers. One exoneree stat­ed, ​“It’s ridicu­lous. They have pro­grams for drug deal­ers who get out of prison. They have pro­grams for peo­ple who real­ly do com­mit crimes. People get out and go in halfway hous­es and have all kinds of sup­port. There are hous­ing pro­grams for them, job place­ment for them. But for the inno­cent, they have noth­ing.”

After spend­ing 16 years in prison for a crime he did not com­mit, Jeffrey Mark Deskovic was exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence and released from prison in New York. Deskovic was con­vict­ed of the 1989 rape and mur­der of fel­low high school stu­dent. He was 17 at the time. Now 34, he is try­ing to get back on his feet – a dif­fi­cult process with lit­tle gov­ern­men­tal sup­port, accord­ing to the Times. 

For the six months fol­low­ing his release, Deskovic received less than $300 a month from the gov­ern­ment for both dis­abil­i­ty and food stamps. He sub­si­dizes his income through speech­es and edi­to­ri­als about wrong­ful con­vic­tions. The fed­er­al civ­il rights law­suit against the police that coerced his con­fes­sion and oth­er offi­cials involved in the case, as well as a claim against New York seek­ing finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion for wrong­ful impris­on­ment, are still pend­ing. Deskovic, soon to grad­u­ate from Mercy College with a B.A. in Behavioral Sciences, still has dif­fi­cul­ties adjust­ing to his free­dom. ​“Sometimes, I feel that the only dif­fer­ence from here to prison is that I don’t have bars on my win­dows. I’m free, but I’m trapped, and no mat­ter how much I run, I’ll nev­er make up for the lost time.”
(“Free and Uneasy: Vindicated by DNA, but a Lost Man on the Outside” by Fernanda Santos, and ​“A Long Road Back After Exoneration, and Justice Is Slow to Make Amends” by Jane Roberts and Elizabeth Stanton, The New York Times, Nov. 25, 2007). See also Innocence.

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