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Few Oklahoma Wrongful Convictions Receive Payment

Greg Wilhoit, former death-row inmate from Tulsa, was exonerated in 1993.
Tulsa World
/
Creative Commons

Few Oklahomans wrongfully convicted of a crime receive compensation after their convictions are overturned due to evidence indicating innocence.

The Tulsa Worldreports that just six out of 28 Oklahomans listed on the National Exoneration Registry collected any money for their years spent in prison. They served an average of nine years in prison, with half serving a decade or more.

Of those 28 cases, 11 people were freed after DNA tests showed they were innocent.

Records show six people have been freed from Oklahoma's death row after they were exonerated.

The National Exoneration Registry was founded by the University of Michigan Law School. The website tracks cases in which a person was convicted of a crime and later cleared of all charges based on new evidence of innocence.

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