Exonerated Prisoner Defeated Ex-Wife's Claim

A Texas man named Steven Phillips spent 24 years in prison for crimes he did not commit before DNA evidence exonerated him in 2008. Texas paid him $2,069,166.67 upfront and granted him a monthly annuity of $11,601.90, giving his compensation an expected lifetime value of up to $6 million. His former wife, a woman named Traci Tucker, who divorced him in 1992 while he remained imprisoned, sued for a share by arguing that some of the money represented lost marital wages. A district court initially awarded her $114,459.50, but in 2014 the Texas Fifth District Court of Appeals reversed the decision and ruled that she could take nothing from his compensation.

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