Well...considering that he was wrongfully convicted of a forcible felony, he probably was not locked up in a minimum security prison. I think we have all heard of how life in prison is a struggle to stay alive from one day to the next, violence of prison gangs and much worse. I think he should be properly compensated for what he had to endure for the past eighteen years...loss of freedom...loss of civil liberties and civil rights...loss of consortium... mental distress, etc.

I recently saw a documentary in which a prison chaplain was interviewed. He was a reformed former inmate that had been convicted for armed robbery. He indicated that it was very easy to make enemies who thought nothing of injuring or killing him. He said he had to fight for his life on more than one occasion. He said that while he was locked up there was a rash of prisoners who were turning up dead. Someone was reaching into their cells, and killing them with a knife while they slept. They never caught the culprit.

In so far as what he would have earned had he not been convicted, it is a matter that is very frequently an issue in personal injury trials in which there is a claim for lost future earnings. It can be reconstructed through the expert testimony of an economist. Off  hand I do not know too many people who could have lived on $27,700.00 per annum from l988 to present. 

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