When Oregon lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1584 in 2022, they sought to give people who had been wrongfully imprisoned a path to compensation for their time behind bars.

Since then, 16 former inmates have filed petitions in court, saying the state owes them money because they were convicted of felonies and later exonerated and released. Thirty-four other people have filed notices that they intend to bring such claims. So far, two people — stemming from the same case — have been compensated, the state says.

The Oregon Department of Justice, which handles these cases, is contesting most of the claims being filed by those wrongfully convicted, attorneys say.

“We have cases where these individuals have tried their cases over and over and over again and proved their innocence, and yet their case is contested,” said Janis Puracal, executive director for the Forensic Justice Project, a group that seeks to prevent wrongful convictions by helping attorneys challenge forensic evidence in court.

She added, “That was not the intent of the bill.”

The path to compensation

The law made the wrongfully convicted eligible for $65,000 for each year spent in prison, and $25,000 for each year on parole or the sex offender registry. They are also entitled to a variety of services like job training and housing assistance.

The law made people eligible for relief if:

• Their convictions were reversed, vacated, dismissed.

• They were pardoned by the governor.

• They were later found not guilty of the crime.

To be compensated, they must prove they didn’t aid or commit a crime, attorneys say. They must do this “by a preponderance of the evidence,” which means they must show a jury that there’s more than a 50% chance they didn’t commit the crime.

Attorneys say this is a high bar to meet.

“That makes it an almost impossible standard,” said Andrew C. Lauersdorf, an attorney and former prosecutor who now represents people who were wrongfully convicted.

Compensation process creates more trauma

In interviews with The Bulletin, lawyers criticized the state for racking up greater costs to taxpayers, causing further trauma among their clients and running the risk of deterring others from seeking relief.

Among those seeking compensation is Luke Wirkkala, who served more than eight years in prison for a 2013 fatal shooting in Bend. He said he was defending himself from a sexual assault, and a jury acquitted him in 2021.

Another man, Earl Bain, served six years on charges of sexual abuse in 2009 in Malheur County until a witness recanted her story. In 2020, Oregon’s governor pardoned him, saying he was “truly innocent.”

And Santiago Morales served five years in prison for a 1986 murder in Clackamas County until an eyewitness named other perpetrators and said Morales wasn’t there. His conviction was set aside in 1991.

Instead of resolving these case before trial, the state is contesting more than 90% of them, Laurie Roberts, a policy advocate with the Innocence Project, wrote in testimony for the Oregon Senate Committee on Judiciary earlier this month. That means many people have to retry their case for compensation in civil court.

“It is hard not to feel like your reputation is in question again, almost like you’re on trial again,” said Alice Lundell, director of communications with the Oregon Justice Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for criminal justice issues. Lundell added, “The state needs to take responsibility and be accountable for what it’s done to them.”

Friday is the last day for people who were exonerated prior to the law’s passage to file a claim to be compensated. At least three lawyers have — or plan to — file petitions to meet the deadline, which was established by the new law.

The state’s position

In an email, Roy Kaufman, a Department of Justice spokesman, said the state is evaluating evidence in each case, engaging in settlement discussions or going to trial. He noted, “These petitioners have not all been legally proven innocent.”

“Under the law, ‘exoneration’ does not mean the same thing as ‘innocent’ — a distinction that was also understood at the time the bill was drafted,” he said.

With the deadline approaching, the state “has not yet seen an uptick, but it is possible that we will see a substantial number of new filings” by Friday, Kaufman said.

Attorneys hope the process will go smoother than it has so far. In prison, many of their clients missed birthdays and graduations. They lost friendships, homes, child custody and their reputations. Since their release, some have struggled to rebuild their lives, with a stigma following them in everything from job interviews to restoring trust with their loved ones.

“They have to figure out how to put the pieces of their lives back together,” said Jesse Merrithew, who is representing Wirkkala, who was acquitted in the Bend fatal shooting. “It’s incredibly harmful, and the compensation is really pretty modest in comparison to the damage that’s done.”

Wirkkala filed his petition in the Deschutes County Circuit Court last month. He seeks $777,166.62 for the eight years and two months he spent incarcerated.

“I spent more than 8 years behind bars for a crime I did not commit,” Wirkkala said in a statement to The Bulletin Tuesday. “I lost my freedom, my home, and ultimately my marriage. Since my release, I’ve been trying to rebuild my life from the ground up, while trying to cope with the mental and emotional scars that inevitably come from such an experience.”

The mounting pressure reached Oregon lawmakers earlier this month. In testimony before the Oregon Senate Committee on Judiciary, attorneys representing those wrongfully convicted criticized the state for its handling of these cases.

Roberts, of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to free the wrongfully convicted, said the group was “disappointed” by the “aggressive approach” taken by the state. Of the 37 states with a similar law, Roberts said the nonprofit was unaware of any states fighting as many claims as Oregon. He called the state a “serious outlier.”

Kimberly McCullough, legislative director at the Oregon Department of Justice, testified that the Oregon Department of Justice supported the wrongful conviction compensation bill law.

“Our review of these cases takes time, as does the court process,” said McCullough. “We are still quite early in the life of this statute.”

Still, attorneys say that by fighting each case, the state is costing taxpayers even more money than what had already been lost from the mistakes made in court.

“By fighting these things, the state is just increasing the amount of taxpayer money that’s going to have to go to lawyers instead of people who were wronged,” said Merrithew.