Bill would increase compensation for wrongfully convicted

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After Jarrett Adams was exonerated of a sexual assault conviction that landed him in prison for nearly 10 years, he found work moving stones.

And when Adams got hurt on the job, he ended up walking around with a fractured foot for three years because he couldn’t pay for health insurance.

A bill now before state lawmakers would help him and others who have been freed from prison following a wrongful conviction put their lives back together. The state Senate’s Committee on Judiciary and Safety held a public hearing Wednesday on the proposal, which is officially named Senate Bill 322.

Wisconsin currently offers the wrongly convicted $5,000 for every year of wrongful incarceration and caps the total that can be paid out at $25,000.

When the law was enacted in 1911, Wisconsin was the first state to provide compensation to the wrongfully convicted. But now, according to proponents of the Senate Bill 322, it lags far behind many other states.

The bill would let exonerees collect $50,000 for every year they had spent behind bars. Total payouts would be initially capped at $1 million — an amount that would be adjusted every fives years in accordance with inflation. Exonorees also could participate at their own expense in the state’s health insurance program for up to a decade and would get access to transitional services, such as job training and housing.

Such services were not among the things Fredric Saecker received when he was released in 1996 after serving seven years in prison for a rape that he was later found not guilty of.

“After my release, I was afraid of interaction,” he said. “I was afraid of being in a store and other public places.”

Despite Saecker’s reluctance to be out and about, he tried to support himself by cutting wood and working at a sawmill.  He has been employed in his current job for 13 years, he said, but has been unable to make up for the seven years he went without any income.  Saecker said he will have to work until he is at least 70 to have something for retirement.

Among the other supporters of the bill who testified Wednesday was Keith Findley, the founder of the Wisconsin Innocence Project and a representative of the Wisconsin State Bar’s criminal law section.

Findley noted that the bill had been unanimously approved by the bar at a recent meeting and that it has wide support among bar members.

“This system is fallible, it makes mistakes,” Adams said. “We’re not here to point figures, we’re  here for a solution.”

No one testified against the bill at Wednesday’s hearing. Follow @erikastrebel