This thread got me wondering about real life cases where someone tried, convicted, and sentenced was later cleared of wrongdoing. I’m sure there have been dozens, with the advent of DNA analysis.
Let’s make up an example case because I’m not aware of any specific occurences. Say John is convicted of murder, sentenced to life in prison, and has served 20 years of it thus far. The case is reopened using evidence from the scene 20 years ago, and analyzed by today’s technology. It becomes crystal clear through DNA that John had absolutely nothing to do with the murder, and he is released.
What position does the government take after that? “Oops, sorry, our bad. Thanks for the 20 years, seeya”? Or is there any kind of compensation for John (and, potentially, his wife and children)?
I can understand the position that everyone’s best judgement was used 20 years ago before the technology was available to prove his innocence, thus the government was not in error by convicting him. On the other hand, regardless of intent, that’s now 20 years of an innocent man’s life wasted. Perhaps that’s more of a GD topic right there… but, factually, what (if any) recompense options are available to the victim?
One of the most notable cases in Canada of a wrongfully convicted was David Milgaard, who got a compensation package of $10 million from the federal and provincial governments.
This will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction within the United States, it will likewise vary from country to country across the world, as well.
I have a vague memory of someone here making a pretty good post outlining some of the policies across a few different states (Gfactor maybe??) but I can’t find it through simple searching.
Some states have compensation statutes, some do not. In the ones that do not you will have to go through legal battles to get any compensation from the State. In States without any compensation statute you may not even get any of the services that parolees get, because you aren’t a parolee–as someone who has been released due to wrongful conviction it’s not seen as legally appropriate for you to be part of the parole system (as being out on parole is a form of punishment just like incarceration.) Outside the parole/probation system there aren’t always the best services for recently released inmates.
You’ll have extreme trouble finding a job if you were incarcerated for a lengthy period of time. It can be a nightmare getting your record truly expunged, your conviction may continue to prevent you from getting jobs for years to come. If you’ve spent significant time in prison you will lose a lot of the skills required to survive on the outside world. You will lose some of your basic abilities to relate with other people in the way that non-incarcerated people interact with one another. Basically you’re in bad shape. Hopefully you get some money out of it (some states have compensation statutes that are actually fair) so that you can at least try to transition back into the life you once knew without having to deal with joblessness, homelessness and et cetera at the same time.
On the one hand, being wrongfully imprisoned has got to be one of the worst things that can happen to a person (particularly if the duration is long), and it seems like there should be some ‘justice’ as far as renumeration afterwards.
On the other hand, if everything went according to process, then no one in the system is really ‘at fault’ for a person being wrongfully convicted. I don’t know how many people or how often it is that a person is later found to be innocent, but can states really afford to pay millions out to people who were convicted based on evidence in a trial by a jury of their peers, who are later found (on appeal?) to be not guilty?
That seems like it would open up a huge can of worms.
It depends on a lot of variables, it varies from place to place and according to the circumstances of the case.
The UK for instance operates under Strict Liability, which means that if the state goofs they pay compensation, which may be in the region of several tens of thousands of pounds for each year incarcerated.
Texas, however, is different. There it is not enough that the state goofs. To get compensation you must show deliberate misconduct, such as police faking evidence to get a conviction. Mere mistake is not enough. Randall Dale Adams for example received no compensation for the years he spent on Death Row,
We had a case almost exactly like that in Wisconsin. He was in jail for (I’m guessing here) 17 years and they gave him like $40,000. Then he raped and killed someone and they put him back in. Lesse if I can remember some of the names and dig up an article.
My opinion is that if a person is convicted of a crime and all parties have acted within the law and to the best of their abilities at the time, no compensation should be paid to anyone if new evidence comes to light.
Inherent in any human activity is the understanding that we are fallible. This has to apply to courts, juries and attorneys as well as to the average man. Think what would happen if you or I had to compensate anyone we had harmed, no matter how long ago, even though we operated from the best intentions at the time.
Only if there can be shown to have been criminal misconduct on the part of any agents of the court or the justice system should compensation be paid, and then it should be paid largely if not totally from the pockets of the person or people found to be criminally negligent.
Yep, but the Home Office will also deduct costs for accommodation and food at Her Majesties facilities.
US States will go a long way to prevent paying compensation. A Scottish man has just been released from Death Row in Alabama after 21 years. He had been convicted of an arson attack that killed his girlfriends daughter. An appeal found his trial flawed and his conviction unsound. However, he was offered a plea bargain to get out of jail immediately with no compensation (plead no contest to some child endangerment charge), or have to go through a new trial at some future date (certainly not immediate, maybe a few years) for the chance of an acquittal and compensation.
He took the opportunity to go home (although not without a heart attack scare on the day he was to be released).
This just recently happened as I recall, and was met with a good degree of outrage. Guy was in jail for quite a while (rape conviction I believe). He was then cleared of all charges and the state compensated him for… well whatever legal term they use for wrongfully keeping you in jail for about a decade. However, they deducted a hefty amount to pay for his food and lodging. If they are going to do that, they should just award a lesser amount rather than taking away a portion of what they did award. Talk about adding insult to injury.
IMHO it seems that the ones running the legal system don’t want to pay out because it means openly acknowledging a mistake.
Personally, I think it’s a good thing to give compensation because it gives that much more incentive to be sure they have the right guy instead of just rushing to a conviction just because they think they have the right guy in order to “look good” to the public and boost conviction stats.
Believe it or not, it happens sometimes. (gasp!)
Sadly, we can’t always count on honesty, a work ethic, and a sense of fair play to keep the system in line.
We need for mistakes or sloppiness to come back to bite someone in the ass to keep them to a minimum.