Texas has paid nearly $100 million to 95 men and women who were wrongfully convicted since 2009, according to a study conducted by criminal defense firm Michael & Associates in Austin.1
Records from the Texas State Comptroller’s Office also indicate the state pays a monthly annuity to each exoneree, totaling almost $500,000 per month.
The compensation is the result of the Tim Cole Act, which was enacted in 2009 and named after a Texas Tech University student who died in prison in 1999 while serving a 25-year sentence for a rape conviction. Cole was posthumously exonerated of the conviction by DNA evidence.
The Tim Cole Act requires that an exoneree be paid $80,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment, in addition to the monthly annuity.