The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The law, which went into effect Dec. 30, set up a system for wrongly convicted felons to seek compensation at civil trials. The former inmates' lawyers and sponsors of the bill said they expected the attorney general would simply approve claims filed by defendants later found not guilty through incontrovertible evidence like DNA rather than litigate them. But, the lawyers said, Reilly has gone so far as to ask the Superior Court to slow the process in the case of at least one defendant cleared by prosecutors.

''Instead of accelerating the process so that these individuals could be properly compensated, the Commonwealth has attempted to move these cases onto a slower track," said Robert Feldman, a lawyer for two men who filed claims and cofounder of the New England Innocence Project. ''These individuals have lost five, 10, 20 years of their lives and are released from prison with nothing, absolutely nothing."

Corey Welford, a spokesman for Reilly, defended the attorney general's handling of the claims. He said Reilly has to verify that each individual was wrongly convicted, run criminal background checks, and comply with a requirement that the former inmate committed no other crimes in the cases that sent them to prison.

''These are very sensitive cases, and everyone can understand why the plaintiffs would want the decision immediately," Welford said. ''But we also have a job to do, and our job is to gather the information to make sure the plaintiffs meet the requirements laid forth in the statute."

At least 23 people in prison have had their convictions overturned in Massachusetts over the past 23 years, according to the New England Innocence Project. Of the 10 people who have filed claims, six were Suffolk County cases. The rest were from Middlesex, Hampden, and Plymouth counties.

For six years, civil liberties groups and advocates for wrongly convicted prisoners lobbied lawmakers to provide compensation to people who lost years of their lives behind bars. But it was not until last December that the Legislature, spurred by several high-profile exonerations, passed a law that Governor Mitt Romney signed. Massachusetts is among 20 states with such laws.

To qualify for compensation under the new law, individuals must establish through ''clear and convincing evidence," either through a court order overturning the conviction or a governor's pardon, that they were wrongly convicted and did not commit the crimes that sent them to jail.

The civil trials would take place in superior court, where those filing claims would have an option of a jury or bench trial. The former prisoners can seek up to $500,000 from the court, which is to take into account lost income, prison conditions, and other factors.

By mid-February, six wrongly convicted men had filed claims. All sought $500,000, except for Dennis Maher, who was wrongly convicted of two rapes and a sexual assault and filed three claims totaling $1.5 million. Maher spent more than 19 years in prison until he was freed in 2003 after being cleared by DNA evidence.

Maher, 44, who lives in Tewksbury and works as a late-shift mechanic for a trash company, said he would use the money to buy a house to live in with his 5 1/2-month-old son and his fiancée, who is pregnant with their second child.

He said he cannot understand why nothing appears to have happened with his claim and questioned whether the political ambitions of Reilly, a Democrat considered a likely gubernatorial candidate, could be a factor.

''He's running for governor," Maher said. ''Would [agreeing to an award] make it like he's being easy and giving away money?"

Welford, Reilly's spokesman, said the suggestion his boss was playing politics was ''ridiculous."

Maher is being represented by Feldman, who also filed a claim for Stephan Cowans, a Roxbury man freed from prison last year after Suffolk prosecutors acknowledged the fingerprint used to convict him of shooting a Boston police officer seven years earlier was not his.

He said he was stunned when Reilly filed a motion in March to transfer Cowans's claim to a slower track in the court to obtain more information.

Feldman filed court papers pointing out that Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley issued a public apology to Cowans after he was freed from prison and that Reilly was quoted in the Globe as calling Cowans's case ''just a terrible tragedy [that] never should have happened."

The judge rejected Reilly's motion to slow the process as ''inappropriate." Last month, Feldman filed a motion asking the court to grant Cowans's claim as a matter of law. Reilly filed a response in which he agreed that Cowans was entitled to an award but reserved the right to contest the amount.

Feldman said Cowans desperately needs money so he can finish his training as a barber, a pursuit he took up behind bars.

Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project based at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, said he is puzzled that none of the former prisoners in Massachusetts has received any money.

The systems for compensating the wrongly convicted vary across the country, he said, but in Texas people sometimes receive awards in a month or two.

Two Massachusetts lawmakers who crafted the law, Representative Patricia Jehlen and Senator Dianne Wilkerson, said they were also surprised and concerned.

Wilkerson said she might understand Reilly scrutinizing a case involving a defendant who was wrongly convicted because of, say, a flawed police investigation. But most of those who filed claims under the new law were exonerated because of airtight DNA evidence. ''It's been established: These people are innocent," she said.