Let’s say you’ve been in prison for the past 20 years for a murder you didn’t commit. Newly discovered evidence proves your innocence.
The state lets you free, giving you only the standard $20 for bus fare and a new suit. Meanwhile, your life has been destroyed. Your family has turned their backs on you, and you haven’t the foggiest idea where to locate them. Meanwhile, you have nowhere to go, and the world has changed significantly since you were last free.
Should the state give wrongfully incarcerated people some form of compensation to help get them back on their feet? Let’s not get into the issue of the state being to blame for putting innocents behind bars, let’s just say it was a complete accident. Should they compensate and help reintegrate them back into society, or just say “oops, sorry” and leave them on their own?
How about taking what the person made per year, adding a bit, multiply it by the number years wasted in prison, and Voila!
Granted, it goes without saying that money pales in comparison to liberty, but at the least, we should compensate them for lost earnings, legal fees, and some (not too much, though) damages.
I think the person should get compensation. I think the person should get a lot more than what they made during they year-I mean they were wrongly accused, they have no more good name (remember the mcmartins?), they have been robbed of freedom in the land of freedom.
I think compensation-if it would be at all possible-should set the individual up for life; perhaps a college tuition, or a free house, or a good job, plus all the psych bills they need.
I think Ramanujan makes a good point. Where would this money come from? Well, from the rest of us - not exactly fair. Why should I have to pay you damages because the government falsely imprisoned you?
For this reason, I think that the government should pay you a monetary compensation to cover monetary losses, but should not pay anything in the way of punitive damages. Similarly, I don’t think lawsuits against the government should be able to win punitive damages - it’s pointless, as it only punishes the taxpayers.
As the act of imprisonment, proven false, was done on our behalf, by our duly elected/appointed representatives, it is precisely we taxpayers who are ultimately responsible.
In the UK, if you are wrongfully imprisoned, you are very likely to receive compensation for ‘false imprisonment’, but even if you didn’t you could still sue the government or the police. Am I correct in thinking that in the US tho, you can’t sue governmental organisations?
If the reason you are set free is that the prosecutor engaged in misconduct, you should get compensatory and punitive damages - and the relevant municipality should not be able to indemnify the prosecutor (i.e. the prosecutor who committed the malpractice would have to pay personally, along with the municipality). Such conduct should be severely discouraged and the deterrence should be high.
If there is no misconduct, and there was a validly rendered verdict from a jury, then no. In that case, there simply was no false imprisonment - the prosecutor acted properly, as did the jury. To compensate the prisoner for that, unfortunately, would deter prosecutors from acting properly - if the municipality had to pay money when the prosecutors did the job they were supposed to, then pressure is likely to come down on the prosecutor to be overly cautious when prosecuting someone, thus increasing risk to society to some extent.
Again, depends. If the prosecutor engaged in misconduct, then yes, our elected and appointed representatives are ultimately responsible. However, if the original guilty verdict was legally proper, it wasn’t our representatives who imprisoned the prisoner, it was the jury.
I agree with this, if for no other reason than self-interest. It could ver ywell be me that ends up being falsely imprisoned, and I wouldn’t mind a slight tax increase to set up a safety net for all of us, even if I never have to use it myself.
But the jury acts on behalf of ‘We, The People’, no?
I am no lawyer, but since our criminal legal system is, in theory, acting on behalf of us (through the gov’t), then we, through the gov’t are responsible for its mistakes.
Miller, your post gave me an idea for a compromise.
Falsely imprisoned because of prosecutorial misconduct - you may sue the municipality and the prosecutor and squeeze them until they squeal.
Falsely imprisoned after a proper and valid trial - you may be compensated from a public trust fund specially set up to provide funds, that is independently funded by some fee or another (perhaps a bar fee for lawyers, or something), and, if money is paid, won’t affect the budgets of any other government agency.
That way, there is no deterrence from prosecutors agressively and properly pursuing cases, but the prisoner gets compensated.
But RobertTB, it’s not a mistake. Based upon the evidence available, a jury of your peers determined that there was no reasonable doubt that you committed the crime. That is the definition of legal guilt in our society.
If later on, new evidence unavailable to the jury at the time of trial comes to light, such as DNA that proves the convict’s innocent, that doesn’t mean that retroactively the jury made a mistake. Their verdict was still the proper one, because it can only be based on the the evidence available at the time of trial.
ElJeffe: Uh, WHOSE government are we talking about? What, the gummint is some exterior force arbitrarily imposed on us? We’re not responsible? Whose highways do you drive? Whose army defends your freedom? Whose schools educated so well?
OK, my stance on this issue changes. Assuming that the trial was fair and proper, the verdict is ‘correct’. If at some point, it is shown that the verdict is no longer correct, then…well, no system is perfect. We must live with what we have.
But man, I feel bad for innocent people who rot in prison, and I am just about the most cold-hearted SOB you will meet…
BTW, personally I feel that the wrongly imprisoned should receive a monthly allotment for life. A back payment should be based on legitimate lost wages should be provided by the state, but any punitive damages should be provided only through a lawsuit against whatever party is held responsible.
If this were a case similar to one in MS a few years ago in which the prosecution KNEW that the defendent was innocent yet convicted him anyway, I believe the punitive damages should bankrupt the lawyers responsible (with safeguards against fraudulent conveyance) and that the lawyers should be disbarred and themselves imprisoned. (None of this was done.)
I would be very leary of awarding excessive lump sum punitive damages, because statistics of people who blow windfalls overnight with nothing to show are already alarming and would probably be even moreso for somebody deprived of liberty for 14 years.
Not really. Frankly, I like the idea of a deterrent for prosecutors against proceeding with weak or nonexistent cases for reasons other than public justice. I think such a deterrent would serve to balance the pressure prosecutors feel to win cases for reasons other than clear-cut violations of the law (such as public outrage, coming elections, planned political careers, etc.).
