BATON ROUGE, La. — A controversial bill that would have repealed compensation for wrongfully convicted people in Louisiana is no longer moving forward after facing intense opposition from legal advocacy groups.
House Bill 673, authored by state Rep. Nicholas Muscarello, R-Hammond, sought to eliminate the state’s wrongful conviction compensation statute. If passed, it would have stripped exonerated individuals of their right to seek financial restitution from the state.
Muscarello said the bill stemmed from a recent rise in overturned convictions in Orleans Parish. “We thought we could work with a solution to the problem,” Muscarello said.
“But ultimately, after getting with the stakeholders, getting with all the parties involved, it just looks like something we can’t tackle this session, and I’m going to park the bill.”
Muscarello acknowledged the bill went too far.
“At the end of the day, I believe in fairness, no matter the situation,” he said.
“And I felt like we went a little too extreme. It would actually hurt the rights of people wrongfully convicted. I didn’t feel it was a solution to the problem, and that’s why I chose to park it.”
The bill was met with strong opposition from groups like Innocence Project New Orleans, which called the proposal “cruel.”
“This is money that people who are wrongfully convicted rely on to achieve some stability,” said Meredith Angelson, deputy director of Innocence Project New Orleans.
“It’s critical resources for them, and we obviously oppose any change to that law.”
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, Orleans Parish leads the nation in per capita exonerations, with 23 cases—about 7.92 per 300,000—while Jefferson Parish ranks eighth with 12 cases, or 3.67 per 300,000.
“Part of the reason you’re seeing that trend is that Orleans Parish and Jefferson Parish are two of the Parishes that have dedicated units in the district attorneys office that go back and look at whether convictions are sound,” Angelson said.
“Not everybody who has been let out of prison by those divisions, is innocent—many, particularly in Orleans Parish, have plead guilty to get out. Those are not the folks who are bringing these wrongful conviction suits," Angelson said.
Angelson emphasized the state’s moral obligation to support those who are wrongfully convicted.
“I think the bill was misdirected from the start,” she said.
“We have to acknowledge, as a state, that people have been victimized by the criminal justice system—convicted of crimes they didn’t commit—and that they deserve the opportunity to go through separate proceedings, prove their innocence, and receive something to make them whole for the years they’ve lost.”
While HB 673 is off the table for now, Angelson and others are also pushing back against a separate proposal—House Bill 675.
That measure would impose a two-year deadline for filing post-conviction petitions, potentially shutting the door on new evidence of innocence that can take years to surface.
“We are most concerned that this does not shut the door on innocent people making their case in court,”
Angelson said. HB 675 has been recommitted to the Committee on Appropriations.
