Under current law, only someone shown to be innocent by means of a DNA test is eligible for compensation after being released. The law allows $36,500 a year for the same number of years the person was wrongly incarcerated.
The vetoed bill would have increased the payment to $65,000 a year and expanded it to include people freed by the conviction review process created in a 2021 law.
If this innocent person was eligible for payments in Missouri, which she is not, and if the bill was passed to increase payments, then she may have received a maximum of $2.8m. However, it’d be paid as an annuity of $65k per year. If she dies her family would get nothing more. And, the payments are in lieu of a civil suit.
She’ll have to sue if she wants justice. I hope she does. I’ve been to prison. I think she deserves to be comfortable for the rest of her life.