The state’s claims commissioner has found that Connecticut should pay Dixwell/Newhallville Alder Maceo “Troy” Streater more than $5.75 million as compensation for the 23 years he spent incarcerated for a murder he has always said he didn’t commit. Robert Shea, Jr. issued that decision on Tuesday, Feb. 10 — a finding with broader implications for the role of the pardon process in the state’s reckoning with police and prosecutorial misconduct. The state senate’s Judiciary Committee is now slated to review the commissioner’s finding at a March public hearing before voting on whether to approve the award. “That meant something to me,” Streater said of the commissioner’s decision. “I stayed the course and I maintained my innocence, and stayed on the journey of getting my name cleared. It’s been a long time.” Click here to read the claims commissioner’s decision in full. The decision states that Streater’s compensation award should total $5,752,798 and should come from the State Comptroller’s Adjudicated Claims Fund. Streater received a pardon in 2022 for the 1990 murder of Terrance Gamble. The pardon came nearly three decades after his conviction and about five years after he was released from prison. The meaning of that pardon — and whether it should be interpreted as an official finding of innocence — was a topic of heated debate nearly a year ago, when Streater first appeared before Claims Commissioner Shea. At that March 2025 hearing, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Beizer advocated against compensating Streater, arguing that Streater’s pardon should not be interpreted as an exoneration. Beizer stated to the commissioner that even though Streater received a pardon, “There has been no court, no prosecuting authority, no tribunal, no one ever has cast any doubt on the fact that he’s guilty.” Ultimately, Commissioner Shea disagreed. In his decision, he delved into the particulars of the state statute (Section 54-102uu) that details the system through which individuals can receive state compensation for wrongful convictions. As Shea noted, a portion of that statute establishes a two-year window for individuals to file for wrongful-conviction compensation after receiving a pardon. Streater filed his claim within that two-year window, initially seeking $12 million. Shea also cited language in the statute that describes eligibility for wrongful-conviction compensation. One pathway to eligibility, as established in the statute, is when a conviction is “vacated or reversed” based on “grounds of innocence or grounds consistent with innocence.” Shea quoted from the statute: “’grounds consistent with innocence’ includes, butis not limited to, a situation in which a conviction was vacated or reversed and there is substantial evidence of innocence, whether such evidence was available at the time of the investigation or trial or is newly discovered.” The commissioner argued that “a situation where the Board [of Pardons and Paroles] accepted Mr. Streater’s assertions of his innocence, giving rise to Mr. Streater’s pardon,” should be considered “grounds consistent with innocence.” While the Board of Pardons and Paroles did not explain its decision to pardon Streater, Shea wrote that the board granted Streater’s pardon “by accepting – and not challenging – Mr. Streater’s assertions of his innocence.” In other words, Shea determined that Streater’s professed innocence was integral to the pardon he ultimately received — and, therefore, a legitimate basis for state compensation. While this finding may have broader implications for how the state interprets pardons in relation to claims of wrongful conviction, Shea noted that lately — starting at some point after Streater’s hearing took place — the Board of Pardons and Paroles explicitly states that “the granting of a pardon is not an indication that an applicant has been wrongfully convicted.” “Now,” Shea wrote — after Streater’s pardon took effect — “this seems to mean that an applicant applying for a pardon should not expect that he/she could receive a pardon from the Board on grounds consistent with innocence.” Streater’s attorney, Alex Taubes, said he felt “honored” by the commissioner’s finding. “No physical evidence has ever tied Troy Streater to the May 8, 1990, murder because Troy is innocent. History has proven him innocent,” Taubes said. “Look at what he has done, despite everything that was done to him…. Imagine what Troy could have done if he had not been incarcerated wrongly for 8,394 days.” “Nothing Can Give You Back The Time” Streater was convicted of the 1990 murder of Terrance Gamble, who was shot to death in Newhallville at the age of 19. Both Streater’s brother and Rev. Boise Kimber testified that Streater, who was 23 at the time, had been in church at the time of the shooting. Prosecutors relied on four witnesses to tie Streater to the crime, all of whom recanted. “I was convicted without a scintilla of physical evidence,” Streater noted. After an initial criminal trial resulted in a hung jury, Streater was convicted in a second trial in 1993. Two of the detectives responsible for his conviction, Joseph Greene and Anthony DiLullo, have been implicated in other convictions that have since been overturned due to police and prosecutorial misconduct. Streater served 23 years of his 35-year sentence, maintaining all the while that he was innocent. Initially, Streater recalled, “I was baffled. I was younger. I was angry. And I said, ‘Why me?’” But he learned that “bitterness, it doesn’t help you. It just consumes you.” Over time, he turned to his Christian faith to maintain hope. “You have to stand with belief in something. I knew that I was innocent and I did feel that one day I would be vindicated,” he said. Streater was eventually released from prison in 2017. On April 6, 2022, he appeared before the Board of Pardons and Paroles, seeking out a pardon. “I want to extend my condolences to the victim’s family for this senseless tragedy,and also state again as I did at my two trials that I did not commit this crime,” Streater told the board. “Although I am innocent of that crime, I take full responsibility for all other crimesand other convictions that I have.” The board voted to grant him an absolute pardon. Within two years, Streater was elected to the Board of Alders, representing Dixwell, Newhallville, and Prospect Hill as the alder for Ward 21. He also became one of 20 people convicted in New Haven County to be listed on the National Registry of Exonerations. In addition to seeking compensation from the state, Streater has since filed a lawsuit against the city of New Haven for the New Haven Police Department’s culpability in his conviction, a civil case that is currently in the pre-trial discovery stage. Meanwhile, as he awaits a final decision from the Judiciary Committee, Streater said that claims commissioner’s decision felt validating. “Of course it’s good to be recognized and compensated, but nothing takes the place of the time” spent behind bars, Streater reflected. “No matter what you receive, nothing can give you back the time that you missed with your family: the funerals that you missed, the weddings and different family functions.” He added, “I’m not the only one that has been falsely accused and did time for something he didn’t do.” The post Alder’s Wrongful-Conviction Compensation Advances appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less