If you were wrongfully imprisoned, how much money you get depends on which government held you and which path you take. Federal law pays up to $50,000 for each year of wrongful incarceration, and up to $100,000 per year for time spent on death row.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2513 – Unjust Conviction and Imprisonment At least 39 states and the District of Columbia have their own compensation statutes, with per-year amounts running from as little as $20,000 to as much as $200,000. A federal civil rights lawsuit can pay far more, with verdicts reaching tens of millions of dollars, but only if you can prove specific government misconduct caused the conviction.
What the Federal Statute Pays
For a wrongful federal conviction, 28 U.S.C. Section 2513 sets the ceiling at $50,000 per year of imprisonment, doubling to $100,000 per year for time under a death sentence.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2513 – Unjust Conviction and Imprisonment Claims are filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
The proof requirement is strict. You need a court certificate showing the conviction was reversed on the ground of innocence, or a pardon that specifically states it was granted because you were innocent. A general pardon or a commutation that doesn’t speak to innocence won’t do. You also have to show you did not cause or bring about your own prosecution through misconduct or neglect.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2513 – Unjust Conviction and Imprisonment Many federal claims stall here, because not every exoneration produces the clean paperwork the statute demands.
What State Statutes Pay
At least 39 states and the District of Columbia have wrongful-conviction compensation laws on the books as of early 2025, and the number is still growing. Per-year amounts vary widely:
- About ten states match the federal figure of $50,000 per year.
- One jurisdiction pays $200,000 per year, another pays $80,000, and several sit in the $65,000 to $75,000 range.
- A few states use tiered systems in which the annual amount grows with the length of imprisonment.
Caps matter as much as the per-year figure. Some states cap total compensation at $1 million or $2 million, which sounds substantial until you apply it to someone who served thirty years. Other states cap total awards at $20,000 to $25,000, meaning decades of lost freedom are compensated at less than a year of minimum wage. States with no cap let the per-year formula run its full length.
Many state statutes add compensation for time spent on parole or probation after release, or for years on a sex offender registry stemming from the wrongful conviction. About a quarter of states have no compensation statute at all, which leaves a civil lawsuit as the only route.
What Civil Lawsuits Pay
A federal civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 is the second path, and it is where the largest awards come from.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1983 – Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights These suits typically allege that police fabricated evidence, coerced a confession, or suppressed evidence favorable to the defense under Brady v. Maryland.
A jury sets damages in three categories:
- Economic damages, meaning lost wages over the career you would have had, missed retirement contributions, and imprisonment and reentry costs.
- Non-economic damages for pain and suffering, psychological harm, loss of family relationships, and the years of lost freedom themselves. These often exceed the economic figure.
- Punitive damages against individual defendants whose conduct was especially egregious. Municipalities cannot be hit with punitive damages.
The largest wrongful-conviction verdict in U.S. history totaled $75 million, with roughly $31 million in compensatory damages and $13 million in punitive damages. Research comparing outcomes has found exonerees who win or settle Section 1983 cases receive an average of about $305,000 per year of incarceration, compared with about $70,000 per year under state compensation statutes. That gap is why many exonerees pursue civil litigation even though it takes longer and is harder to win.
If a Section 1983 case succeeds, the court has discretion to order the losing side to pay the plaintiff’s reasonable attorney fees.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1988 – Proceedings in Vindication of Civil Rights Without that fee-shifting, attorney costs could swallow much of the award.
Winning is another matter. Qualified immunity shields officers from personal liability unless the plaintiff can point to prior court decisions holding that nearly identical conduct was unconstitutional. Officers also have absolute immunity for their trial testimony. Suing a city or county directly requires proving, under the Monell doctrine, that the violation traced back to an official policy, a widespread custom, or deliberate indifference by leadership, not just to the acts of one employee.
Who Is Disqualified
Being innocent and having served time is not automatically enough. State statutes carry eligibility rules that lock a surprising number of exonerees out.
The most common disqualifier is a guilty plea. Many states bar compensation entirely if you pleaded guilty, even if the plea was later vacated and you were proven innocent. A few states carve out exceptions for coerced pleas, but the default is that a plea counts against you. People who took plea deals under pressure of decades-long sentences can find themselves shut out after DNA evidence establishes their innocence.
States also deny compensation to anyone whose own misconduct helped bring about the prosecution, such as fabricating evidence or committing perjury. Most states carve out false confessions, recognizing that a confession later proven false should not bar recovery. The federal statute imposes the same “did not by misconduct or neglect cause or bring about his own prosecution” requirement.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2513 – Unjust Conviction and Imprisonment
Concurrent sentences reduce or eliminate payment for overlapping time. If you were also serving a valid sentence during the wrongful one, most states won’t compensate the years you would have been in prison anyway.
Filing Deadlines
Both paths have hard deadlines, and exonerees miss them more often than the stakes would suggest.
For statutory claims, most states require filing within two to three years of the conviction being formally overturned, the charges being dismissed, or a pardon issued on innocence grounds. The filing typically goes to a state court of claims or the superior court in the county of conviction, with documentation proving innocence.
For Section 1983 lawsuits, the statute of limitations is borrowed from the state’s personal injury deadline, which commonly runs two to four years. The Supreme Court has held that the clock does not start until the underlying conviction is overturned or otherwise invalidated, so the deadline runs from the date of exoneration, not the date of the original misconduct. Missing either deadline by a day generally kills the claim.
Taxes and Public Benefits
Wrongful incarceration compensation is not taxed. Section 139F of the Internal Revenue Code excludes civil damages, restitution, and other monetary awards related to wrongful incarceration from gross income, and the exclusion covers both statutory payments and civil lawsuit awards.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 139F – Certain Amounts Received by Wrongfully Incarcerated Individuals Added by the PATH Act of 2015, it applies to compensatory damages, statutory damages, and restitution imposed in criminal matters.5Internal Revenue Service. IRS Updates Frequently Asked Questions Related to Wrongful Incarceration To qualify, the conviction must have been reversed or vacated, or the person pardoned based on innocence. Exonerees who paid tax on earlier compensation may be able to file amended returns for refunds, within the usual IRS deadlines.
A large payment can still cost you means-tested benefits. Federal regulations exclude certain crime-victim compensation from counting as an SSI resource, but only for nine months after receipt.6eCFR. Title 20, Chapter III, Part 416, Subpart L – Resources and Exclusions After that window, the remaining funds count as an asset, and total resources over the SSI limit end the benefit. Since Medicaid eligibility often rides on SSI, a settlement can knock out health coverage at exactly the wrong moment. A benefits planner or attorney can structure the funds, for example through a special needs trust, to avoid that outcome.
Services That Come With the Money
Cash is not the only thing on offer. Many state compensation statutes bundle in reentry services, though what’s available varies sharply by state:
- Job training and education, including tuition assistance for college or vocational programs and job placement help.
- Medical, dental, and mental health care, including counseling for post-traumatic stress.
- Housing assistance, which matters because even an expunged wrongful conviction can make landlords wary.
- Legal help expunging the wrongful conviction from your record.
- Reimbursement or forgiveness for child support that accrued during imprisonment.
Some states offer a comprehensive package; others provide only the cash. In states with no compensation statute, exonerees are limited to general reentry programs built for all formerly incarcerated people, with nothing tailored to the circumstances of a wrongful conviction.