Professor Andrew Geddis Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
A law professor hopes an independent commission aimed at dealing with cases of wrongful conviction will stop cases like Alan Hall's taking decades to rectify.
Alan Hall will receive almost $5 million over his wrongful conviction for the killing of Auckland man Arthur Easton, including the maximum of $150,000 to reflect wrongdoing by the police or the Crown.
Hall spent nearly two decades in prison after being convicted in 1986 of the murder, a crime he always maintained he did not commit.
His murder conviction was quashed by the Supreme Court in June 2022.
Andrew Geddis from the University of Otago said the Criminal Cases Review Commission had been operating since 2020, reopening cases for people who felt there was a problem with their conviction.
"There are people in New Zealand in prison and have been released from prison who should never have gone there, who were innocent," Geddis said.
"What important is that when that happens, we do recognise it and where serious losses have occurred, such as Mr Hall who lost 30 odd years, compensation is paid properly."
He hoped the commission would start to get a higher profile when it started bringing cases back to be re-examined by the courts.
Geddis said Hall's compensation payment indicated that investigations were ongoing into whether anyone in his prosecution committed an offence.
"Something wrong was done in the prosecution here, it just wasn't a systems failure, it was misconduct or poor action by individuals."
He said the government had not explained why this kind of compensation was given.
