Help Fix Florida’s Broken Compensation Law

Help innocent Floridians get the financial justice they deserve.

In 2008, Florida enacted the “Victims of Wrongful Incarceration Compensation Act” with the goal of helping innocent people rebuild their lives after having their liberty unjustly taken from them. Unfortunately the criteria for filing a claim is so restrictive that only 5 out of Florida’s 88 exonerees have received compensation in the 16 years that the law has been in place.

Florida’s law currently has a “clean hands” provision which prohibits exonerees with prior unrelated convictions from filing a claim for compensation. While 37 states, the federal government, and the District of Columbia all have laws regarding compensation for wrongful convictions, Florida is the only state in the country with this ban. An innocent person deserves compensation for the years – and sometimes decades – they were unjustly imprisoned regardless of their prior history. It’s unfair to hold an innocent person’s prior conviction against them especially when we know that having a prior conviction can increase the risk of being wrongfully convicted in the first place.

The current law also requires compensation claims to be filed within 90 days of a judge vacating or overturning a person’s wrongful conviction. This arbitrary deadline fails to take into account how our judicial system and the exoneration process works which leads to confusion for both exonerees and our courts.

It’s time to correct this injustice. We need Florida lawmakers to fix this broken compensation system. Until then, 20 innocent Floridians, who combined spent 330 years incarcerated for crimes they did not commit will be left waiting for justice. 

Sign the petition above to urge lawmakers to pass long awaited legislation that would provide financial justice to innocent Floridians.

This campaign is in partnership with the Innocence Project of Florida.