TALLAHASSEE — A years-long legislative effort to make it easier for people who have been wrongfully incarcerated to receive compensation from the state is headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis, after the House unanimously approved the bill on Tuesday.

Lawmakers passed a compensation program in 2008, but the law included what is known as a “clean hands” provision that makes exonerees who had been previously convicted of certain felonies ineligible for the compensation.

The bill (SB 130) would do away with the clean hands provision and would ease the timeline for exonerees to seek compensation from the state, an issue that also has posed a barrier for some people seeking payments.

House sponsor Traci Koster, R-Tampa, said Tuesday she has proposed a bill every year since her first House election in 2020 to make it easier for exonerees to be eligible for compensation.

The bill “has given my legislative career purpose,” Koster said.

“We have one of the strongest criminal justice systems in the world and we should be really proud of our criminal justice system. But just because we have one of the best systems in the world, doesn’t mean it’s perfect,” Koster said. “And this bill, what it does, all it does is open the door slightly for these folks who have been wrongfully incarcerated to seek the compensation that they’re entitled to.”

The 2008 law, championed by the late attorney and Florida State University President Sandy D’Alemberte, said the state should compensate people who were wrongly convicted of crimes — so long as they hadn’t previously been convicted of violent felonies or multiple non-violent felonies. Under the law, exonerees are eligible for $50,000 for each year they served in prison. The compensation is capped at $2 million.

Florida is the only state with a wrongful incarceration compensation program that excludes people with prior felonies. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 91 people in Florida have been exonerated since 1989. Five of those exonerees have received compensation.

Koster on Tuesday said the bill, if signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, would allow “19 exonerees in our state, who have lost over 306 years of their freedom because we, as the state of Florida, put them in prison” to seek compensation.

“Six of those exonerees have spent over a decade waiting to get their justice from the state,” Koster said. “All this bill does, again, is slightly open the door for those folks.”

The bill also would extend from 90 days to two years a deadline for exonerees to seek compensation and set up a process for people who receive compensation to repay the state if they receive civil settlements.

The Senate last month also unanimously approved the measure, sponsored by Fleming Island Republican Jennifer Bradley.

“Part of that privilege of being able to come up here (to the Legislature) and represent our constituents is the duty that comes with that, to be able to right wrongs, to be able to stand up for the people of the state of Florida who have been wronged,” Bradley said during Senate debate on the bill, which she said is “the right and just thing for a state to do who has taken people’s liberty.”

Koster told The News Service of Florida earlier this year that she began sponsoring the legislation after meeting with Robert DuBoise, who spent 37 years behind bars — including three years on Death Row — before his exoneration in 2020 in the rape and murder of a Tampa woman.

DuBoise was 18 when he was arrested and was 55 when he was released from prison after the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office concluded his conviction for the 1983 crimes should be vacated.

DuBoise, 60, is advocating for the change.

The current law “is basically putting a target on anybody that’s been convicted of anything in their life,” he told The News Service of Florida in a February interview.

Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, worked with D’Alemberte on the 2008 law and has championed the changes approved Tuesday for nearly two decades.

Miller, who watched from the public gallery as the House approved the measure, thanked Koster and Bradley for their efforts.

“Now the hope is that the governor will sign the bill and we can bring justice to those individuals who, before this point, weren’t able to be compensated,” Miller told the News Service after Tuesday’s vote.

Earlier Tuesday, the Senate unanimously approved a claim bill (SB 10) that would pay $1.772 million to Sidney Holmes, who served 34 years in prison before his conviction was overturned in 2023.

Holmes was arrested in 1988 and charged with robbery with a firearm in Broward County. Holmes was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to 400 years in prison.

Senate bill sponsor Jason Pizzo, a Sunny Isles Beach who does not have a party affiliation, said the bill would compensate Holmes — who watched from the public gallery Tuesday — $50,000 a year “for the liberty and freedom that we took away from him.

“Mr. Holmes, on behalf of the state of Florida, I want to apologize and say, insofar as we can offer you this slightest of gestures for your liberty and your time spent away, which is so precious to all of us and our families and which you have been deprived off, sir, the least we can do is press a green button and thank you for your patience, sir,” Pizzo said.

The Senate gave Holmes a standing ovation after unanimously approving the bill. A similar measure is pending in the House.