Slate published an excellent Explainer today on compensation for wrongful conviction, highlighting some of the embarrassingly pitiful payments around the country.

Massachusetts has no yearly rate, either, but eight of its nine exonerees as of last month received the maximum sum of $500,000—including one who had served four years and another who served 19. Life is cheaper in Illinois, which wrote a check for $138,000 to Dana Holland, who was locked up for 10 years, and gave a scant $161,000 to Michael Evans, an Illinois man who spent 27 years behind bars before being cleared of wrongdoing.

The article identifies Justice: Denied as “the magazine for the wrongly convicted.”

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James C. Tillman will receive a five million dollar check from the State of Connecticut after being exonerated by DNA evidence following 18 years of incarceration for a rape conviction. The state legislature unanimously passed a bill awarding the special compensation and Governor Jodi Rell said she will be honored to sign it.

Though money can never repair what was taken from Tillman, the $5M award is a worthy and commendable gesture. Unfortunately the absolved victims of wrongful incarceration are seldom treated so kindly:

A study by The Innocence Project found that only 37 percent of the wrongly convicted [nation wide] received any compensation at all from the government, and the compensation those few did receive was often woefully inadequate.

Society owes it to these most damaged and deserving victims to fully and generously address the inadequacy (chart) of compensation for the wrongfully convicted and imprisoned.

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