What does New Jersey owe somebody for the years they spent in prison, on parole or probation or registered as a sex offender for a crime they did not commit?

Republican and Democratic state lawmakers agree the answer is more than current law allows. But beset by budget negotiations and political wrangling over legalized marijuana, a bill advocates say would fix New Jersey’s broken system for compensating the wrongly convicted is crawling through the Legislature.

Under New Jersey law, those exonerated from crimes they did not commit can sue the state to recoup money for time they spent locked up, but under rules pushed by former Gov. Chris Christie, the program is not available to anyone who entered a guilty plea.

Assemblyman Gordon Johnson, D-Bergen, has sponsored legislation (A1037) that would wipe away that restriction and expand access to compensation for those who spent years on sex offender registries or on probation or parole.

“It’s up to the state to assure those who have been wrongfully convicted are compensated, and hopefully get their lives back on track,” Johnson told an Assembly committee this week.

“Unfortunately, our current system, our laws, do not align with our judicial system — the one that we all believe in so much," added Assemblywoman Serena DiMaso, R-Monmouth, another sponsor.

The committee heard testimony from supporters including the Innocence Project, the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Princeton-based Centurion Ministries and the Hotel Trades Council.

It also heard from Dion Harrell, one of just a handful of people whose lives could immediately change if the bill passed.

Harrell served four years of an eight-year sentence for a 1988 rape he didn’t commit, and spent nearly three decades as a registered sex offender before he was exonerated thanks to DNA evidence.

“I still feel that I’m still locked up,” he told lawmakers at the Assembly Judiciary Committee’s Tuesday hearing. “What happened to me is still stuck with me.”

Nobody testified against the measure, but the committee did not act to advance it.

Under current law, exonerated inmates can sue the state Treasury for either double their annual income or up to $50,000 for each year they spent locked up. The new measure would also allow them to recoup up to $25,000 for years spent on parole, probation or as a registered sex offender.

Advocates estimate the proposed law would cost about $1.4 million to pay former inmates currently not eligible for compensation.

“There’s probably nothing in one’s life which would be more horrible than to have the government array it’s entire force against an innocent person and deprive them of their liberty on that grounds,” said Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, R-Morris, who told his colleagues he would likely support the measure.

Carroll said he objected to the provision allowing people who pleaded guilty to recover money when they are later proven innocent.

Later, Michelle Feldman, the state campaigns director for the Innocence Project, noted that false guilty pleas are common in a justice system geared toward making plea deals instead of going to trial. Feldman’s group says one in every 10 DNA exonerations involve cases where a person pleaded guilty under pressure from prosecutors.

Carroll also objected to another quirk of New Jersey’s system.

“You shouldn’t have to sue,” he said during the hearing, arguing that state compensation for the wrongly convicted should be “mandatory.”

The measure was introduced last year but has yet to receive a vote in either house of the Legislature.

Johnson told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday that legislative leaders were preoccupied with “a little thing called marijuana and a six-letter word called ‘budget,’” but that he was confident “it’ll be on the board the next voting session.”

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter.

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