Wrongful death attorneys are often hired for cases where a doctor or nurse made a fatal error, or a passenger in car accident died and was not a relative of the driver. The state of Washington, as well as half of the United States, still has the death penalty for the most heinous of crimes. More than 4% of all capital executions are innocent men and women. If your family member was wrongfully convicted and executed, you need to speak with a wrongful death attorney.

Post-Mortem Justice

Despite the fact that your family member is gone, you can still seek justice for him or her. For example, in the last forty years since the state of Washington reenacted the death penalty, one person was proven innocent of the crimes that sent him to death row. There have been no clemencies in Washington ever, which means that your family member had zero percent chance of being freed before execution.

Numerous other states have found that they executed innocent people, so it is not a fictional occurrence either. If there was new evidence in the case that proved a reasonable doubt afterwards, you, as a spouse, parent or child of the deceased, are entitled to compensation.

What Your Lawyer Can Get for Your Family

The biggest question you probably have with regards to your case is: What kind of compensation can I get? This is usually the first question out of everyone's lips, since what you want most is a public apology for executing your relative. However, you can also sue the state for hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for taking the life of someone they should not have taken. The total amount is based on the lost income of you and your children would have received as a spouse, or the inheritance you might have had had your parent lived to a ripe old age and then died.

Other things you might be allowed to include in your lawsuit are:

• compensation for pain and suffering
• mental health care for you and other family members who were deeply affected by the execution
• compensation for time lost from work tending to the legal needs of the family member, as well as your own case after the execution

You can ask your lawyer to sue for all of the above, but ultimately it is up to the judge to decide what is fair and just. Be prepared to receive only a public apology, because you are certainly due that. Anything else the judge agrees to award you with is extra.