Opinion: Connecticut should not tax the wrongfully convicted

Marquis Jackson, who served years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction before his exoneration in 2018, at the driveway gate of his rental property in New Haven in 2025. Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media

James Tillman spent 16 years in prison for a rape and kidnapping he did not commit. After DNA testing proved he was innocent, the State of Connecticut awarded Mr. Tillman $5 million for years of lost liberty, and the federal government wasted no time in trying to tax that.

The Connecticut man’s case became the reason that, in 2015, Congress enacted the Wrongful Convictions Tax Relief Act to make wrongful-incarceration compensation income tax-free. U.S. Rep. John B. Larson (D-CT, 1st District), who sponsored the bill, explained plainly: “We took their time away; we should not take their money also.” So, Connecticut has already taught Washington to keep its hands off wrongful incarceration awards.

It is time to do so again, and clean up the state law at the same time.

In recent years, Connecticut has begun making payments to the wrongly convicted at a scale the state has never seen before. In February 2025, the legislature’s Judiciary Committee ratified $37.6 million in claims for eight men who had together lost 151 years to prison. Earlier this month, the City of New Haven agreed to pay Vernon Horn and Marquis Jackson $15.25 million apiece to settle lawsuits over their wrongful murder convictions, on top of the $4.8 million and $5.3 million the state had already awarded them, respectively. A federal jury awarded Stefon Morant $38 million in a separate case the city is appealing. The family of Richard Lapointe, who died still fighting to clear his name, received $5.9 million after his conviction was vacated.

Bridget J. Crawford teaches taxation at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.

Read the full article at CT Insider.