A New Study Reveals Montana’s Shocking Wrongful Conviction Rate

How Does Montana Stack Up on Justice?

Well, right out of the gate I'll say that Montana is not the worst offender when it comes to sending innocent people to prison.

While we might not be as bad as some states, I think we all can agree sending even one person to prison on a wrongful conviction is not a good thing.

Montana Isn’t the Worst—But Is That Good Enough?

To determine the number of prisoners who are sitting in a prison who should not be there, the Omega Law Group looked at the data that the National Registry of Exonerations compiled.

They tracked cases from 2020 to 2024 to determine which states were the worst offenders when it came to wrongful convictions.

According to their study, currently they estimate that anywhere between 4 and 6% of the prison population are there for a crime they did not commit.

Wrongful convictions aren’t just statistics—they’re real Montanans.

While you might think that number is pretty low, here in Montana, being sent to prison on a wrongful conviction means on average you'll lose about 9 years of your life.

I don't know about you, but I would be devastated to lose out on 9 years of milestones for something I didn't do, which is why the National Registry of Exonerations works so hard to free innocent people.

So take a moment and scroll through the gallery below to see how Montana stacks up against other states in America, and hopefully in years to come we can improve our standing.