Substitute Senate Bill 5520 reforms Washington’s wrongly convicted persons act by amending multiple sections of chapter 4.100 RCW, adding a new section, amending RCW 28B.15.395, and repealing RCW 4.100.020. It treats compensation claims as civil actions filed in superior court with venue and service governed by existing civil rules, allows authorized agents or personal representatives to file for certain claimants, and sets out both a preliminary pleading stage (preponderance of the evidence) and a judgment stage (clear and convincing evidence) showing a person was convicted and imprisoned, is “actually innocent,” did not commit perjury or fabricate evidence, is not currently incarcerated for other crimes, and meets specified criteria such as a pardon/commutation/reprieve on grounds consistent with innocence or vacatur/reversal following significant new exculpatory information with dismissal, an Alford/Newton plea while maintaining innocence, or retrial and acquittal. The bill sets specific compensation rules and procedures: monetary awards of $50,000 per year of wrongful confinement (including pretrial/civil detention), an additional $50,000 per year for time served under a death sentence, and $25,000 per year for time served on parole, community custody, or as a registered sex offender when based only on the wrongful felony. Awards must reimburse child support and interest (paid as a lump sum to DSHS for disbursement), restitution, fees, assessments, and court costs; punitive damages are barred. Attorneys’ fees for a prevailing claimant are fixed at 10% of certain monetary damages plus expenses with a $75,000 cap, not deductible from the award, and none are allowed if the claimant fails to prove wrongful conviction. The statute prohibits offsetting awards by state or local custody costs, treats awards as nontaxable income except for attorney fees, requires sealing of conviction records upon relief and allows vacatur/expungement on request (RCW 9.94A.640 vacating rules do not apply), provides for reentry service referrals, and permits structured settlements subject to court approval and safeguards. The bill also changes definitions and related education benefits: it defines “actually innocent,” “significant new exculpatory information,” and changes the term “wrongly convicted person” to mean a Washington domiciliary who filed a successful claim under chapter 4.100 RCW; it amends RCW 28B.15.395 to impose tuition and fee waiver provisions for certain children of wrongly convicted persons and instructs higher education institutions to rely on RCW 28B.15.013(d) standards. It directs the Attorney General’s authority to concede claims (with limited grounds to seek an evidentiary hearing), preserves civil appeal rights with specified standards of review, and sets filing deadlines (generally six years after relief or release, with tolling for state appeals, plus special timelines for older cases and reconsideration of previously denied claims). Several provisions and the court’s payment obligation are cut off or not shown in the provided text, and the bill’s effective date or certain enacted details are not present in the extracted material.

If enacted, the bill creates a clearer, more detailed route for people who can show they were actually innocent to seek money and relief, setting firm dollar amounts ($50,000 per year of wrongful confinement, an extra $50,000 per year for time on death row, and $25,000 per year for time on parole/community custody/sex-offender registration) and spelling out nonmonetary relief like sealing or vacating records and referrals to reentry services. Wrongfully convicted people and their qualifying children stand to gain predictable compensation, capped attorney fees (10% of damages up to $75,000), lump‑sum child support payments routed through DSHS, and eligibility for tuition waivers at public higher education institutions; claimants also get specified appeal rights and the attorney general must concede valid claims in many cases. The practical burden shifts to the State and its agencies: courts must process and potentially approve structured settlements and record relief, the Attorney General faces expanded duties to concede or litigate claims, DSHS must receive and disburse child support lump sums and provide reentry referrals alongside DOC, and public colleges must implement children’s tuition/fee waivers. These changes create ongoing, identifiable fiscal exposure to taxpayers because awards are set per year and cannot be offset by incarceration costs, but the bill text in the excerpts is incomplete (some payment and effective‑date details and certain referenced subsections are missing), so the total fiscal and administrative impact cannot be precisely determined from the provided material.