New law makes millionaires of Texas prisoners exonerated by DNA

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Under a new Texas law that takes effect this week, dozens of prisoners who have been wrongly convicted will become instant millionaires, the Associated Press reports.

They will get $80,000 for each year they spent behind bars, the AP says. The compensation also includes lifetime annuity payments that for most of the wrongly convicted are worth between $40,000 and $50,000 a year.

The biggest compensation package will likely go to James Woodard, who spent more than 27 years in prison for a 1980 murder that DNA testing later showed he did not commit.

He eventually could receive nearly $2.2 million, the AP says.

The AP profiles Thomas McGowan, 50, who is among 38 DNA exonerees in Texas. McGowan spent 23 years in prison for rape and robbery before he was cleared last year.



(Photo of McGowan by Donna McWilliam, AP)

Texas legislators last spring increased compensation and expanded payments to include the estates of deceased inmates as part of the law named for a Texas Tech student who died in prison serving a 25-year sentence for a Lubbock rape he did not commit, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reports.