BATON ROUGE – Wilbert Jones served 46 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and after he was released, the state compensated him financially. Now, the Legislature seeks to increase financial compensation for people like Jones who were wrongfully imprisoned.

“People approach us when they know his story, and they make comments like, ‘Oh, you spent half of your life in prison,’” said Mary Jones, his wife, and “I have to correct them and say, ‘No, he has to be 92 years old before he’s even spent half of his life in prison.’”

Current state law, passed in 2005, allows petitioners to be awarded up to $40,000 a year for up to 10 years following proof of factual innocence before a judge.

Petitioners are also awarded a one-time lump sum of $80,000 for loss of life opportunities, covering expenses for job skills, housing and education. Funds are provided by the Innocence Compensation Fund, a state fund created under the statute.

Senate Bill 125 by Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, D-Lafayette, would maintain the eligibility requirements and compensation amounts but extend the compensation cap from 10 years to 15 years.

The bill was reported favorably in the Senate Judiciary C Committee on Monday and is pending consideration by the Senate Finance Committee.

“It is about fairness, and it is trying to move closer to compensating innocent people for the actual amount of time they were wrongfully imprisoned,” Boudreaux said.

For Jones, who is now in his early 70s, fairness was hard to come by. With no lawyer to properly represent him due to high costs and with little consideration for his case, it took Jones 11 attempts until the court granted a retrial.

At the time of Jones’ release in 2018, no one in the country had spent more time incarcerated for a crime for which he was later cleared of all charges.

“We’re very grateful that a judge saw that he was innocent and agreed he should be compensated,” Mary Jones said. “However, only acknowledging a fraction of the many years he spent wrongfully imprisoned is painful.”

Compensation under the statute helped the Joneses buy a house.

Last year, Republicans challenged the compensation statute following an abundance of wrongfully convicted compensation cases in Orleans Parish.

House Bill 101 (renamed HB 673) by Rep. Nicholas Muscarello, Jr., R-Hammond, would have eliminated the compensation state fund and shifted the financial and case responsibility to local parishes. Rep. Debbie Villio, R-Kenner, amended the bill further to repeal the wrongfully convicted compensation statute entirely.

Muscarello voluntarily halted the bill in the 2025 legislative session, saying it went too far. In Tuesday’s committee meeting, Sen. Heather Miley Cloud, R-Ville Platte, addressed those who have been wrongfully convicted.

“I am so sorry,” Cloud said. “Gosh, I am so sorry.”

Cloud said lawmakers “make decisions here that affect real lives, and this is the very least that we could do to help make you whole and what you went through whole.” Compensation under the bill is restricted to those who have been wrongfully accused and have been proven factually innocent before a judge. To qualify for compensation under the bill, an exoneree must go back to court following an overturned conviction and present clear evidence of innocence.

Those acquitted of a crime on legal technicalities are not eligible for financial compensation.

Zac Crawford, a staff attorney and wrongful conviction clinic supervisor at Innocence & Justice Louisiana, a nonprofit fighting against wrongful convictions, indicated that 88 people have been exonerated in Louisiana under the original statute. Of those 88, 40 have been awarded compensation and 18 will begin receiving benefits this year. However, 11 individuals within the total group will be denied compensation under the current statute, despite having served for longer than 10 years.

“If you look at the cumulative number of years lost to wrongful convictions – which is 779 for folks in Louisiana – our current statute compensates under half of those,” said Crawford.

The average length of wrongful imprisonment for an exoneree in Louisiana is 18 years, compared with the national average of nine, Crawford said.

Sarah Whittington, advocacy director of ACLU-Louisiana; Daniel Ginnetty, a criminal defense attorney with the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; and Tom Costanza, executive director of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops, pledged their support for the bill.

Mary Jones said it gives her a special thrill when she is with her husband doing little things he could have only dreamed of in prison.

“One of my favorite things about my husband, being with him, is when he sees and experiences something for the first time,” she said.