Wrongfully incarcerated for 18 years, Steven Avery received $25,000 in compensation from the Wisconsin Claims Board Thursday....
DNA evidence successfully exonerated Avery from the rape conviction in 2003. By the time he was released, his wife had divorced him and two of his children — twin daughters less than a week old at the time of his imprisonment — had turned 18 years old.
Why only $25,000?
The $25,000 in damages was the maximum the board could award Avery under state law, according to Mike Prentiss, spokesman for board member Sen. Scott Fitzgerald. In ignoring the $1 million request, the board referred the case to the state legislature, which would have to change a state statute to allow for greater damages.
The legal work was done by law professors and students in Wisconsin Innocence Project here at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
UW law professor Keith Findley, one of the Innocence Project’s co-directors, said it is obvious a change must be made to allow those wrongfully convicted to claim more in damages.
It is obvious that the compensation cap is far too low. I don't think it's right, however, to say that someone was "wrongfully convicted," as the student reporter wrote, if he received a fair trial. If the DNA test that powerfully refutes other evidence was not available at the time and the evidence as weighed at the time of the trial was sufficient, the conviction itself isn't wrongful. Nevertheless, the man suffered terribly and the state ought to choose to give him far more than $25,000 -- not from a sense of culpability, but out of compassion.
UPDATE: As an emailer pointed out, Avery recently filed a lawsuit against Manitowoc County, seeking $36 million in damages. You can see in this linked article that the man was convicted based on the eyewitness testimony of the victim. I'm not a legal expert in this area, but it seems to me that the testimony of a rape victim is sufficient to convict a person, even when there are many alibi witnesses. The factfinder would have to weigh the credibility of the witnesses. A credible eyewitness could still make a mistake, unfortunately. We know from the DNA tests, which became available later, that the man was innocent, but his conviction is not necessarily wrongful. There's still a question whether failing to perform the DNA test and detect his innocence earlier was wrongful.
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