THE CASES OF STEPHEN Truscott and Robert Baltovich are remarkably similar, except when it came to the matter of compensating them for their wrongful murder convictions.

The two men were both young when juries found them guilty of murdering even younger females. Both spent many years behind bars, and albeit for different reasons, neither was able to get the DNA evidence that would have proven their innocence.

Indeed, all they had going for them was some pretty strong evidence that someone else was responsible for the two homicides. Yet the same Ontario government that awarded Mr. Truscott $6.45 million in compensation for his ordeal has now decided not to offer Mr. Baltovich anything.

If nothing else, the decision announced by Attorney General Chris Bentley confirmed that the Ontario government has never developed a consistent policy on righting such state wrongs.

In fact, some legal experts say the government’s refusal to provide financial redress to Mr. Baltovich and Anthony Hanemaayer for their pain and suffering shows that the existing compensation system is arbitrary and unfair.

The Attorney General said simply that it was “not appropriate” to compensate them since they “have both been found not guilty as a result of the steps that the justice system has taken.”

James Lockyer, a lawyer representing both men, sought the compensation as well as an inquiry into why it took the province’s top court so long to quash Mr. Baltovich’s conviction. That, too, was denied.

“This attorney general is completely indifferent to the wrongly convicted and what they go through,” Mr. Lockyer told reporters on learning the outcome.

Mr. Baltovich was wrongly convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bain, in June 1990, a crime for which he served eight years behind bars, while Mr. Hanemaayer was convicted of a 1987 knifepoint sexual assault. Both were acquitted in 2008 after Paul Bernardo admitted to the sexual assault and became a suspect in the Bain slaying.

By contrast, the province paid $6.45 million in compensation last year to Mr. Truscott, who spent 10 years in jail after being sentenced to hang at 14 for the murder of his classmate, Lynne Harper, in 1959.

In an attempt to explain the different outcomes, Mr. Bentley described the Truscott case as an “extremely unusual, once-in-a-lifetime situation.”

He said that to be deserving of compensation, a criminal defendant requires more than an acquittal and something closer to a finding of “factual innocence.”

But even in the Truscott case the Ontario Court of Appeal didn’t go that far. In acquitting him in 2007, the court refused to make a declaration of factual innocence, which was “a most daunting task” in cases that do not involve DNA evidence.

As for factual innocence, it would have been established in the Baltovich case had the Crown not opted to call no evidence in the new trial the appeal court ordered after opting not to deal with a mountain of fresh evidence that pointed, among other things, to the guilt of a blond-haired male whom Ms. Bain had been furtively dating when her boyfriend thought she was attending night-school classes at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus.

In particular, Mr. Baltovich’s factual innocence was pointed to by one Crown witness at his trial, the owner of a health food shop who testified that she came across Ms. Bain, a customer, who was sitting, looking ill at ease, in the passenger seat of her car beside male.

Evidence at the trial showed that at the time Mr. Baltovich was working out in a recreation centre.

Had there been a second trial, the jury would undoubtedly have heard from another witness, not called at the first trial, who a few minutes later had seen a terrified Ms. Bain being driven by a blond-haired male along Highway 401 toward Oshawa.

As we see it, an appropriate government policy would include legislation stipulating that anyone found by an appellate court to have been wrongly convicted of any crime should qualify for compensation at least equal to the legal costs they have encountered, which in the Baltovich case must have been huge.

Beyond that, Ontario should surely have a tribunal similar to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board that would be empowered to award additional compensation, particularly when a wrongful conviction has led to incarceration.

In Mr. Baltovich’s case, the university graduate would presumably have been able to earn about $500,000 in the time he was imprisoned, and that amount would not include anything for the notoriety accompanying such wrongful conviction.

As matters stand, all he and any others who are similarly situated will be able to do is sue the police and Crown alleging wrongful prosecution — one of the toughest things for a plaintiff to establish in a court of law.