Man wrongfully incarcerated for 35 years seeks to increase maximum compensation for IL exonerees

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. (WLS) -- Brian Beals is still getting used to walking freely on public sidewalks.

He is celebrating 90 days since being released from prison after being exonerated for a 1988 shooting that killed a 6-year-old boy and injured his mother in Englewood.

Beals was 22 and home on Thanksgiving break from college. But it would be 35 years before he would see freedom again, and it takes some time to adjust.

"Just trying to build a life. Trying to figure out how to navigate the world the way it exists today. A little different than when I left," Beals said.

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Beals is now trying to adjust to life with a cell phone and the internet. When he went to prison, he was a college athlete studying law enforcement. While in prison, he taught other inmates how to read, edited the prison newspaper and co-wrote award-winning plays.

"I just saw how powerful it was to tell stories and the impact it had on guys," Beals said.

He walked out of the Robinson Correctional Center in December, greeted by family, carrying a box with all his worldly possessions. He could be eligible for compensation from the state, but limited to a maximum of $200,000.

Beals visited Springfield to lobby for a bill that would increase that maximum to $2 million.

"It's about supporting myself and trying to have a life out there," Beals said.

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Beals' attorney, with the Illinois Innocence Project, said Illinois leads the nation in the number of prisoners exonerated.

"When it comes to compensating people who've suffered, the survivors of wrongful conviction, we're at the bottom," said Lauren Kaeseberg with the Illinois Innocence Project.

The bill that would increase compensation already passed the House unanimously and is now in a Senate committee. Beals' attorneys said they are waiting to see what happens with the bill before filing for his certificate of innocence.

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