In 2008, Florida became one of the first states in the nation to create a framework to provide financial compensation for individuals wrongfully convicted of a crime. The legislation called for eligible exonerees to receive $50,000 for each year they were wrongfully incarcerated. Since then, just a handful of exonerees have received such compensation, due to a “clean hands” provision in state law that bans people who have had earlier unrelated felonies from filing a compensation claim — the only such restriction of its type in the country, News From The States reports. Since passage of that law, only five exonerees have received compensation while 19 have been forced to give up the $50,000 for each year they were unfairly incarcerated, according to the Innocence Project.
Tampa Bay House Republican Traci Koster introduced a proposal that passed a subcommittee on Wednesday that would remove the clean-hands language, extend the filing deadline for those who have been exonerated from 90 days to two years, and would give those individuals the choice to receive compensation through either a civil lawsuit or through the Victims of Wrongful Incarceration Compensation Act, “rather than forcing an exoneree to waive their right to file a civil lawsuit.” Among those who missed out was Robert DuBoise, who served 37 years on rape and murder charges but was exonerated in 2020 by the Conviction Review Unit of the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office after DNA evidence testing excluded him as the perpetrator. However, the clean-hands provision of state law precluded him from being eligible for compensation because of two nonviolent property felony crimes which resulted in probation when he was a teenager. He ended up suing the city of Tampa in federal court in 2021 and, ultimately, the city council approved a $14 million settlement for him in 2024.
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