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After they are cleared by the courts or pardoned by the governor, people deemed to have been wrongly convicted would also be able to obtain half-price tuition to state and community colleges and to have their records fully expunged of the contested crimes , under the legislation.

According to figures released by the New England Innocence Project, 23 people in prison have had their convictions overturned in Massachusetts over the last 22 years. In Suffolk County, nine wrongful convictions have been overturned since 1997, according to the group.

Passage by the House and Senate culminated six years of lobbying by civil liberties groups and advocates for the wrongly convicted. The lobbying was set against a backdrop of a series of high-profile cases in which men and women were imprisoned for years, even decades, before being cleared by DNA analysis, witness testimony, or other new evidence.

"There is a huge need for it," said Dennis Maher, a Tewksbury man who served 19 years in state prison for three rapes before he was cleared by DNA analysis and released last year. "If I had been released on parole or probation, I would have been eligible for job training and mental health services. I was innocent, so I got nothing. The only thing waiting for me when I got out was a lot of reporters."

Lawmakers expect Romney to sign the legislation, particularly after they agreed, in part, to his demand that the state take into account the lost income of the wrongly convicted person when setting the award. While saying that the governor would not commit to signing the bill before seeing the final version, Romney spokesman Felix Browne yesterday confirmed that the governor's legal advisers had been "working closely" with the bill's sponsors.

Senator Dianne Wilkerson, the bill's Senate sponsor, called the bill's passage "a huge victory for those victims who never thought we cared, those who never got an 'I'm sorry.' "

"Acknowledging our mistakes makes our legal system stronger, not weaker," said Wilkerson, a Roxbury Democrat.

In other action yesterday, lawmakers passed an insurance fraud bill that targets people who stage car accidents to collect the insurance. A 65-year-old grandmother died last year in what authorities said was a staged car crash. The bill in part targets "runners" -- people who recruit others to take part in fraudulent claims. The bill makes the practice a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Lawmakers also passed a supplemental spending bill that includes a tax break for users of Fast Lane and public transportation and $15 million to help hospitals cover the cost of treating the uninsured.

The wrongful conviction bill, if signed by the governor, would effectively create a no-fault system of compensation for those wrongly convicted of crimes in the state courts.

While the exonerated are able to sue under existing state law, they must generally prove that their conviction resulted from deliberate misconduct by police or prosecutors -- an extremely difficult task, legal specialists said.

Under the proposed new law, however, even those convicted through a series of innocent mistakes could collect damages from the state.

"This is a chance for society to right a wrong," said Joseph Savage, a Boston lawyer and chairman of the New England Innocence Project, the group that help exonerate Maher. "This is the state as an entity stepping up and taking responsibility."

Currently, 15 other states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government are bound by laws that require wrongly convicted defendants to be compensated for lost liberty.

"We started with the premise that people have two main things in this life that are limited: your time and your money," said Norma Shapiro, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, a key backer of the bill.

"We've taken these people's time, we at least ought to make it up with money," she said.

The legislation was the result of months of wrangling between the bill's legislative backers and legal advisers to the governor, who offered several amendments, the sponsors said.

"We do think the governor will sign it because we have worked out so many of the issues they had concerns about," said Representative Patricia D. Jehlen, a Somerville Democrat who first filed the legislation in 1999 after reading about the struggles of Bobby Joe Leaster and Lawyer Johnson, who both served more than a decade in prison for murder convictions that were later vacated.

Although sponsors are now hopeful that the bill will be signed, the passage this week was not the first time they had sent a wrongful conviction compensation bill to Romney's desk.

A version of the bill stalled this summer after the governor offered an amendment that would have based compensation awards primarily on the amount of income that a wrongly convicted person would have earned if they had not been sent to prison.

Supporters said that provision would have gutted the measure, since many of those who are wrongly convicted are poor and are convicted in the first place because they cannot afford a good attorney.

"That was sort of taking away with one had what you were giving with the other," Savage said.

Under the current version, lost income is one of several factors that can be considered in determining the amount of a damage award.

Lawmakers also rejected a more recent proposal by Romney that anyone suing the state under the law would have to obtain both an exoneration from a court and a gubernatorial pardon.

That amendment would have effectively made the governor a gate-keeper for any compensation under the bill, and it was also opposed by the Legislature.

Under the current version of the bill, people can sue either after having their conviction overturned by a court or after the governor grants them a pardon acknowledging a wrongful conviction.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company