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Darryl Hunt will receive an additional $391,000 from the state of North Carolina as compensation for being wrongfully imprisoned for nearly 19 years.

Hunt, the Winston-Salem man who was erroneously convicted of the murder and rape of Deborah Sykes, previously received about $359,000 in state compensation after he was exonerated and pardoned.

Under a new law, Hunt is entitled to more.

The law raises the amount of money that the state awards to people wrongly convicted of felonies who later receive pardons.

The old amount was $20,000 for each year of wrongful imprisonment, up to a maximum of $500,000. The new amount is $50,000 a year, up to a maximum of $750,000.

Because of the length of time he spent in prison, Hunt qualifies for the maximum, so he will be paid the difference between $750,000 and what he previously received from the state. Chris Mumma, an attorney who is handling Hunt's compensation claim, said this week that she plans to file the formal petition for Hunt's additional compensation within the next few weeks.

After that, it shouldn't take long for Hunt to receive the money, Mumma said. North Carolina generally pays out compensation in lump sums.

In addition to compensation from the state, Hunt also reached a settlement with the city of Winston-Salem in 2007 in which the city apologized to Hunt and agreed to pay him $1.65 million.

Hunt, who is black, was twice convicted of the 1984 murder and rape of Sykes, a white Winston-Salem newspaper editor. Hunt was released from prison in December 2003 and pardoned in 2004 after DNA evidence revealed that another man committed the rape. That man, Williard Brown, later confessed to the murder.

The new state law brings North Carolina in line with the federally recommended amount of per-year compensation for innocent people who have spent time in prison.

"The $50,000, of course, it is an attempt to compensate partially for the lost compensation and lost wages, but it is not just a wage compensation," Mumma said. "This goes to cover their medical, their dental, their mental health needs.

"There is no way to recapture the years, and there is no way to compensate for what these men, and sometimes women, lose in their lives."

Mumma is the executive director of the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence, a nonprofit group that coordinates work by North Carolina law schools to investigate inmates' claims of innocence.

The group lobbied the N.C. General Assembly for the new law this year, and legislators overwhelmingly passed it just before they adjourned their 2008 session. Gov. Mike Easley signed the law earlier this month.

During the drafting of the bill, legislators amended it to make it retroactive to anyone given a pardon of innocence on or after Jan. 1, 2004. That ensured that Hunt would qualify for the increased compensation.

Three other people also qualify for the increase: Dwayne Dail, who spent 18 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of a rape in Goldsboro; Leo Waters, who served 21 years after being wrongly convicted of a rape and robbery in Jacksonville; and Steve Snipes of Sanford, who served five years after being wrongly convicted of an armed robbery.

Hunt now runs the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, which advocates on behalf of ex-offenders and the wrongfully imprisoned. Hunt referred all questions to Mumma, who is also handling the compensation petitions of Dail and Waters.

"They're thankful for any help they can get," Mumma said.

The additional compensation money will come out of a state contingency fund or "out of any other available state funds," according to the new law.

The law also contains provisions for the state to pay for educational and job-training opportunities that a person was deprived of by being wrongfully convicted. Any compensation a person receives that way counts toward the maximum individual limit of $750,000.