Abstract:We adapt the victimology of ‗state harms' framework outlined by Kauzlarich et al. (Critical Criminology, 10(3), 2001) to understand the post-exoneration experiences of 18 death row exonerees. Kauzlarich et al. develop six points of commonality shared by most victims of state crime. Application of this framework to death row exonerees highlights the role the state plays in creating and exacerbating the harms they suffer. This analysis also lays a foundation for further theoretical inquiry into the wrongful conviction of the innocent as a form of state crime. Article:In 2003, we began interviewing death row exonerees about their post-exoneration lives. This inquiry was prompted by the substantive growth in academic attention to cases and causes of wrongful convictions since the publication of Radelet, Bedau, and Putnam's In Spite of Innocence [28] 10 years prior, and a substantive dearth of attention to the experiences of exonerees after their release from prison. We began with one primary question-What is the impact of a wrongful capital conviction and incarceration on those individuals who have been exonerated and released?-and several sub-questions: What are the primary issues and obstacles they confront when released? How do they cope with these issues? How do they rebuild their lives? What factors affect their abilities to cope and rebuild effectively?The initial guiding theoretical frameworks in this investigation were drawn from the social psychological literature on trauma management and recovery. We did not explicitly aim to contribute to the state crime literature. But, because the approach has been inductive, rather than deductive While not a fully formed theory of wrongful convictions as state crime, the analysis offered here is a hopeful step in that direction. As noted by Leo [18; p. 213], the scholarly study of wrongful convictions is -theoretically impoverished.‖ Research is dominated by case studies, analyses of legal causes, and calls for reform but falls short of providing theoretical understanding of the production and consequences of wrongful convictions. Leo [18; p. 215] urges social scientists to -draw on existing social science frameworks . . . to identify the various levels of analysis on which comprehensive theory . . . might be built.‖ Here, we use Kauzlarich et al.'s [13] analysis of state crime victims to identify how the state produces and exacerbates the harms exonerees suffer after release. Analyses available in the state crime literature may provide inroads into theorizing wrongful convictions in response to Leo's criticism.Similar to Leo's assessment of the wrongful conviction literature, Kauzlarich et al. [13; p. 174] criticize the rate of -theoretical and empirical‖ development in the study of state crime, especially with regard to the victimology of state crime. While a wide range of state crime victims have been identified [13; p. 175], the sub-field lacks

Kennedy Brewer spent 13 years behind bars seven on death row for the rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl. On February 15, 2008, he became the 127th death row inmate in the United States exonerated and released from prison.

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