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It's a long road to gain a settlement

By JONI JAMES
Published January 14, 2006

TALLAHASSEE - If history is a guide, the path for Alan Crotzer to gain any compensation for the 24 years of freedom he lost will require more patience.

Florida has no provision to quickly compensate wrongfully incarcerated people, even though state legislators attempted to craft one last year as they wrestled with another high-profile case of a man who had spent half his life imprisoned for a rape he didn't commit.

Under Florida law, victims of state negligence can collect up to $200,000 after a court verdict. But only lawmakers, with final approval of the governor, can approve more money, a cumbersome and politically charged process.

"I just kind of despair of the battle that is ahead for Mr. Crotzer to receive any compensation," said Jenny Greenberg of the Florida Innocence Initiative, the two-person nonprofit group that worked to free Crotzer. "It is very much in the hands of the Legislature ... how these people move forward with whatever life they have left."

State legislative leaders had hoped to change that last spring as they considered how to compensate Wilton Dedge, a 44-year-old Brevard County man who was exonerated in 2004 by DNA evidence after serving 22 years on a rape charge.

Hoping to use Dedge as the inaugural claim, Senate leaders pushed to create a system where the Attorney General's Office could negotiate a payment. The House, however, wanted to keep the Legislature involved and sought a formula that would include nonfinancial compensation such as community college tuition and lifetime health care.

In the end, no agreement was reached and Dedge went home empty-handed. Then last month during a special legislative session, lawmakers voted to give Dedge $2-million, $3-million less than he had requested. He also received an apology.

By some standards, Dedge's case was solved quickly. The Legislature didn't vote until 1998 on compensation for two men pardoned in 1975 after a wrongful 1963 murder conviction. And even then, Wilbert Lee and Freddie Pitts received just $500,000, plus attorney fees of 25 percent.

This week, a state Senate committee once again discussed creating a new compensation system for the wrongly incarcerated. The House also is studying the matter. Whether consensus is near, or whether Crotzer will be the beneficiary, is unknown.

Times staff writer Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler contributed to this report.

[Last modified January 14, 2006, 01:39:15]