In 1988, Brian Beals was a college senior at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale eyeing a career in law enforcement. He’d been a football player and made a trip home for Thanksgiving break. He didn’t realize his life was about to change.

Back in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, a mother and her son were shot along a city street. The child, a six-year-old, died. The mother identified the shooter as Beals. He was found guilty and sentenced to 80 years behind bars..

The problem is that Beals was innocent. He would go on to serve thirty-five years for the shooting. A long legal effort finally resulted in his sentence being vacated last year, and Beals walked free on December 12th.

Beals said he was trapped into a system that wasn’t working for the people of his community.

He said he isn’t the first from his neighborhood to be wrongfully convicted.

"There’s another exoneree who grew up two houses down from me and one that grew up two blocks across from me," Beals said. "So many people were wrongfully convicted from that community."

Beals had chosen to study law enforcement because he grew up playing on sports teams coached by former police officers.

After his experience with the justice system, Beals said reforms are necessary.

"People really need to get more involved in analyzing it and voting the right way to make sure that these reforms and that politicians are looking at it correctly," he said.

While his family and others worked tirelessly to get him out of prison, he maintained hope. But he admits after the supreme court overturned a lower court decision for a new trial, his hopes of release were at an all-time low.

"When you’re incarcerated, you literally lose your citizenship, your liberty, you’re disenfranchised, you don’t have a chance to vote on any of these issues," he said.

Now that Beals is free, more focus has been placed on compensating him for the years of his life that were taken away. Exonerees must file a case with the Illinois Court of Claims.

Illinois has more exonerations than any other state, but compensation for the formerly incarcerated is well below the national average. It’s also capped at just over $200,000, meaning exonerees see less and less money each year.

In Beals case, that would equate to around 6-thousand dollars a year for the time he spent locked up.

State Senator Doris Turner wants to see change. She’s working with the Illinois Innocence Project, which helped get Beals out of prison, to raise the payment amount to 50-thousand dollars per year – capped at two million.

"A real positive about working on legislation around the Innocence Project is, as you know, Illinois has really become a national leader with regard to criminal justice reform," she said.

Turner, a Springfield Democrat, said the page is turning in the General Assembly toward criminal justice reform. She said people being elected to serve are more in tune with their communities.

Lauren Kaeseberg is the Legal Director at the Innocence Project. She says Beals’ sister had gathered witness statements that helped them prove his innocence.

"I mean, what we’re talking about here are people who were taken from their lives, thrown into prison for crimes they didn’t commit, take years, most often decades, to get back into court and prove their innocence," Kaeseberg said.

She also said the 2024 compensation bill would give exonerees restitution at a personal and financial level.

"You were wronged by this state," she said. "The state of Illinois wrongfully convicted you and incarcerated you for all these years, and because of that, you were deprived of the opportunity to work, to raise a family, to own a home, to pay into a pension, to pay into social security. 

Brian Beals said his years in prison inspired him to continue to advocate for reform measures.

"I do feel a responsibility to come out, not just for the inside community, but for the outside community as well, and give my perspective on these issues," he said.

Beals is waiting to bring his request for compensation to the state. If the law is changed to provide increased payments, it’s unlikely to apply to past cases. Supporters are hopeful lawmakers take action soon so that Beals can be paid for so much of his life that was taken from him.