Proposals that could help lead to compensation for wrongfully convicted people are ready to go to the full House and Senate after approval Thursday by key committees.

The House Budget Committee and the Senate Fiscal Policy Committee unanimously signed off on the identical proposals (SB 130 and HB 59).

The proposals come 17 years after the Legislature approved a law that allows compensation for people who have been exonerated after being convicted of crimes.

The 2008 law included what is known as a “clean hands” provision that makes exonerees who were previously convicted of certain felonies ineligible for the compensation. The restriction has excluded the vast majority of exonerees from receiving money. The bills would do away with the “clean hands” provision.

The law “unfortunately has failed to live up to its promise of providing much needed compensation to wrongfully convicted Floridians,” Senate bill sponsor Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, said Thursday.

She added, “When the (2008) bill first passed, exonerees were hopeful, but outdated restrictions in the law have resulted in innocent Floridians being denied compensation.”

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 91 people in Florida have been exonerated since 1989. Five of those exonerees have received compensation.

Under the law, exonerees found innocent by the court that convicted them are eligible for $50,000 for each year they served in prison. The compensation is capped at $2 million.

House bill sponsor Traci Koster, R-Tampa, told the House committee that Florida is the only state with a law to compensate people who have been wrongfully convicted that includes the “clean hands” restriction. The bill would “better facilitate the process and remove legal barriers” to compensation for exonerees, Koster said.

The proposals would apply to people whose convictions were vacated by the original sentencing court. They also would extend from 90 days to two years the length of time exonerees can seek compensation from the state and set up a process for compensated exonerees to repay the state if they receive civil settlements.

“Look, I support strong criminal penalties against criminals, but the people in this bill … are individuals who have been exonerated, found factually innocent,” Bradley told the Senate committee. “These are cases where the state got it wrong, not intentionally, but the state got it wrong, with hundreds of years of lost liberty by these individuals and this bill goes one step to righting that wrong.”