HB 118-COMPENSATION FOR WRONGFUL CONVICTION  3:05:50 PM CHAIR SPOHNHOLZ announced that the first order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 118, "An Act relating to compensation for wrongful conviction and imprisonment." 3:06:17 PM OLIVIA GARRETT, Staff, Representative Scott Kawasaki, Alaska State Legislature, summarized from the Sponsor Statement [Included in members' packets], which read: Our judicial system is meant to incarcerate the guilty and protect the innocent. If the system fails Alaskans, then the state is responsible to help the innocent get back on their feet. With increasing technology, DNA exonerations have been on the rise. There have been 349 postconviction DNA exonerations since 1989 with the vast majority occurring since 2000. These individuals spent an average of 14 years behind bars and were released into a changed world. House Bill 118 gives these wrongfully imprisoned victims a chance to start a new life and integrate back into society. Specifically, HB 118 creates an administrative process whereby victims of overturned criminal convictions can request compensation from the state for time served. They can be compensated up to $50,000 per year with a lifetime cap at $2 million, University of Alaska tuition for themselves and their children, state- funded health care including mental health services, up to 3 years of state funded job training services and economic damages including lost wages and attorney fees. In order to qualify for the compensation, the claimant must have served time in prison and then have been exonerated via retrial, dismissed charges, or executive pardon because of innocence. While there is no price on the emotional and personal suffering of those who were wrongfully imprisoned, HB 118 would bring Alaska up to the federal compensation standards to help right the state's wrong. Financial compensation would help victims of wrongful imprisonment repair their lives by covering costs of education, healthcare, housing and transportation. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia have some sort of compensation statute. Every innocent person, regardless of how they became incarcerated, deserves just compensation for the time they wrongly served. HB 118 is a stepping stone in a long process towards ensuring justice for all Alaskans. 3:07:10 PM CHAIR SPOHNHOLZ opened public testimony on HB 118. 3:07:28 PM TIFFANY MERRITT, Graduate Student, University of North Carolina, noted that she was born and raised in Alaska and was currently attending graduate school at the University of North Carolina. She shared that her master's research was in Sociology, with a concentration in Criminology. She reported that, for three years, she had been doing research on wrongful convictions and she had created a database for the amount of financial redress received by death row exonerees. She stated that only 40 percent of death row exonerees received redress, and that only 31 states had compensation statutes, pointing out that Alaska did not have this statute, even as former Senator Ted Stevens was "technically an exoneree." She reported that exonerees had had everything taken from them. After years of incarceration and the loss of many workable years with the attendant job experience, they were released with a host of health and mental health problems. She relayed that much of this could be addressed by the proposed bill. She stated that the compensation package in the proposed bill was "probably one of the best I've seen in my research." She declared her support for the proposed bill, noting that the United Nations had mandated for countries to provide compensation for those who were wrongfully convicted within their borders. 3:09:42 PM WILLIAM HARRINGTON urged swift passage of the proposed bill, and he suggested to amend the bill to include past incidences. He stated that the current treatment of wrongfully convicted in Alaska showed "no dignity." He said that it was necessary for a strong message of dignity to be sent from the Alaska State Legislature and the governor to its citizens. 3:11:44 PM CHAIR SPOHNHOLZ closed public testimony. 3:12:04 PM CHAIR SPOHNHOLZ announced that HB 118 would be held over.