GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Status

Accepted

Abstract

With the exception of the District of Columbia, Connecticut has paid exonerees the highest annual amount of compensation for wrongful convictions in the country, almost four times the national average. Perhaps in part because of this, Connecticut is one of a few states that has attempted to limit the scope and generosity of its statute. It, however, later backpedaled on some of those limits.

Then, in a burst of activity in early January 2025, the Connecticut Claims Commissioner cleared a backlog of pending cases, awarding more than $36 million in compensation. The Connecticut statute has thus had three lives, having been passed in 2008 and amended twice eight years apart, in 2016 and 2024. Connecticut presents a particularly interesting example of the evolution of a progressive state compensation statute. In Connecticut, claims are decided by a single person – the Claims Commissioner – who has the authority to decide all claims against the state. As we shall see, the Commissioner resolved a substantial majority of claims during life number 1, the most generous one and the one in which the statute was most effective.

This article summarizes the Commissioner’s decisions made during that period when the statute had no compensatory floors or caps. Instead, it listed factors the Commissioner should consider in exercising his or her uncabined discretion to arrive at an award adequately compensating the wrongly convicted. Those decisions, almost all of which were written by one Claims Commissioner, reviewed the relevant factors for decision, applied the facts presented, used language that was very empathetic and, ultimately, arrived at compensation amounts associated with each factor with virtually no published reasoning or analysis.

GW Paper Series

2025-39

Download

Included in

Law Commons

Share

COinS