AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas will pay a Dallas County man released from prison in 2006 after DNA evidence exonerated him of a rape that he did not commit an additional $753,000 on top of $1 million already paid for the 20 years he spent wrongfully imprisoned.
Larry Fuller was pardoned in 2007 and in 2009 the Legislature raised compensation for the exonerated to $80,000 per year spent in prison. Initially Comptroller Susan Combs denied Fuller’s request for more money, but after Fuller sued, the state settled, the Austin American-Statesman reported. The Texas Supreme Court dismissed the case Nov. 18.
R.J. DeSilva, a spokesman for the agency, said the state paid because Fuller filed his request in the three-year window. The filing deadline has passed for all other exonerees, he said.
