Greg Bright spent 27.5 years in prison before being exonerated in 2003. After proving his factual innocence, he began receiving wrongful conviction compensation from the state of Louisiana.
Bright received a $190,000 lump-sum compensation payment in 2011, followed by annual payments as Louisiana’s wrongful-conviction compensation law changed over the years. Because his award was made under earlier versions of the law, his compensation followed a different schedule than the current system.
He is now nearing the state’s $400,000 lifetime compensation cap; his payments are scheduled to end in September.
“I bought a house and everything,” said Bright, whose prime wage-earning years were largely spent in prison: he was 22 years old when he was given a life sentence in 1976 and almost 50 when he walked out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary…