There is a problem with Connecticut’s wrongful incarceration compensation statute, Conn. Gen. Stat. § 54-102uu, that undermines the legislature’s intent to compensate promptly the wrongly incarcerated, thereby causing them additional and unnecessary harm. When the legislature enacted § 54-102uu in 2008, it directed the claims commissioner to make “immediate payment” to exonerees. This reflects the legislature’s interest in making such claims a priority. The current commissioner, Robert Shea, has expressly stated his interest in acting in accordance with the legislature’s directive.

Unfortunately, Commissioner Shea’s commitment and the legislature’s intent are being undermined by the current text of § 54-102uu, as amended in 2016, specifically subsection (g), which seems to require that any claimant who receives an award “sign a release providing that such person voluntarily relinquishes any right to pursue any other action or remedy at law or in equity that such person may have arising out of such wrongful conviction and incarceration.” This provision requires any claimant who first receives a § 54-102uu award to waive his right to pursue any other forms of relief, including federal civil rights claims against municipalities and their employees under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Conversely, nothing precludes a claimant who first receives compensation in a federal civil rights lawsuit from then pursuing a state compensation award under § 54-102uu.