# What do prisoners falsely accused (and exonerated) get in recompense? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 20, 2009, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202 "2009-03-20T19:20:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_Wikipedia_Cites)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/1 "2009-03-20T19:20:02Z")
In all the articles about convicts in prison, who lost years of their lives, finally being exonerated after the supposed victim recants (and DNA evidence backs this up), they never seem to follow up on what the dude does to get back at the system. Since everybody else in society seems to sue for any reason, don’t these exonerated ex-prisoners also sue the system? Or is there some automatic payment given according to some actuarial formula? Or do they just get nothing, and the whole experience was simply the price of being a citizen? ---
**Author:** ![batsto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b2d939/32.png) [@batsto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/batsto)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/2 "2009-03-20T19:27:44Z")
There was an awful story on NPR sometime last year about a guy from New Jersey that this happened to…and he didn’t get squat. His accuser recanted, so he was released because his conviction was apparently overturned, but that’s not the same thing as being exonerated. They just couldn’t prove that he did it anymore. He didn’t get anything from the state for his trouble, according to the reporter and the interview. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/3 "2009-03-20T19:41:54Z")
Out of prison, mostly. Sometimes not a lot more. Some may not get that much. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/4 "2009-03-20T19:44:14Z")
I reviewed this topic here: [Do the wrongfully imprisoned get compensation? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2262/do-the-wrongfully-imprisoned-get-compensation) They’ve got charts and stuff here, too: [http://www.innocenceproject.org/news/LawView1.php](http://www.innocenceproject.org/news/LawView1.php) ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/5 "2009-03-20T22:12:27Z")
I believe there was a UK(?) case within the past year or so where a prisoner having spent some time in jail was released after it was revealed they were wrongly convicted. It wasn’t a case where they did the dirty deed and got out on a technicality. They were an innocent person who was wrongly tried, convicted and sent to prison. Shortly after getting out, the government sent them a bill for the room and board they consumed while wrongly in prison. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/6 "2009-03-20T22:21:03Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Shortly after getting out, the government sent them a bill for the room and board they consumed while wrongly in prison. I hope he told them to get bent. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/7 "2009-03-21T00:08:48Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > I believe there was a UK(?) case within the past year or so where a prisoner having spent some time in jail was released after it was revealed they were wrongly convicted. It wasn’t a case where they did the dirty deed and got out on a technicality. They were an innocent person who was wrongly tried, convicted and sent to prison. > > Shortly after getting out, the government sent them a bill for the room and board they consumed while wrongly in prison. I’ll need to dig around on this one, but if IIRC what the UK government wanted to do was deduct room and board from his compensation, not actually send him a bill. Still appalling, I guess. I’ll see if I can find a cite. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/8 "2009-03-21T00:14:20Z")
In this case, they proposed to deduct the charge from his compensation: [Man wrongly jailed for three years charged £7,000 by Home Office for 'board and lodging' | Daily Mail Online](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-458006/Man-wrongly-jailed-years-charged-7-000-Home-Office-board-lodging.html) ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/9 "2009-03-21T00:25:32Z")
Another one: [http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE\_ID=37589](http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37589) There’s an article describing a legal case approving such charges here: [http://www.justicedenied.org/issue/issue\_28/jd\_issue\_28.pdf](http://www.justicedenied.org/issue/issue_28/jd_issue_28.pdf) (pdf p. 19). ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/10 "2009-03-21T01:00:23Z")
Thanks for those, **Gfactor**. It’s sad that they confirm my vague recollection: this was not a single isolated incident, but an institutional policy. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/11 "2009-03-21T01:54:02Z")
Thanks, **Gfactor** , for finding the cite. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/12 "2009-03-21T16:03:45Z")
It’s a curious comparison, really. On the one hand it seems beyond petty to charge folks for involuntary stays. On the other, the UK seems to offer compensation to most wrongfully improsoned people, which makes it better than about half of the states. Ideally, they’d get rid of the charge, but even with it, they beat the crap out of lots of places around here. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/13 "2009-03-21T18:53:26Z")
Its simple; **Double Recovery** which is forbidden under the law of England and Wales. You can only recover for what you actually lost. He was given free board and lodge while in prison, he would have had to pay for those himself if he had been out. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/14 "2009-03-21T19:05:18Z")
> [@PaulParkhead](#): > > I’ll need to dig around on this one, but if IIRC what the UK government wanted to do was deduct room and board from his compensation, not actually send him a bill. Still appalling, I guess. I’ll see if I can find a cite. Isn’t that sort-of-statutory compensation supposed to bring the imprisoned person back up to the financial place they would have been absent the imprisonment? There’s obviously going to be some calculation of living costs and earnings and all sorts in there. Compensation for being wrongly imprisoned is a different thing, I think, but I’m no lawyer. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/15 "2009-03-21T19:13:21Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Its simple; **Double Recovery** which is forbidden under the law of England and Wales. You can only recover for what you actually lost. He was given free board and lodge while in prison, he would have had to pay for those himself if he had been out. If someone provides me with a service against my will, for which I have not entered into a contract or agreed a price, and attempts to charge me for it, I would not expect the courts to find that I was liable. Do you suppose that if I successfully sued a private individual for false imprisonment, and won a financial remedy, that the courts would allow him to deduct the value of any food he had provided me during my stay? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/16 "2009-03-21T19:13:54Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Its simple; **Double Recovery** which is forbidden under the law of England and Wales. You can only recover for what you actually lost. He was given free board and lodge while in prison, he would have had to pay for those himself if he had been out. Hmmm…If I was abducted and held for years (As it happens every other day in Austria), and was awarded damages in court, do you think the culprit would get to deduce the cost of board and food? Or that the court would take this into account when awarding damages? ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/17 "2009-03-21T19:21:04Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Its simple; **Double Recovery** which is forbidden under the law of England and Wales. You can only recover for what you actually lost. He was given free board and lodge while in prison, he would have had to pay for those himself if he had been out. Here is the latest (I think) decision on point: [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldjudgmt/jd070314/obrien-1.htm](http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldjudgmt/jd070314/obrien-1.htm) And that is prescisely how the House of Lords analyzed it. I note that the decision describes the deduction differently (not a charge for room and board provided but a deduction from the lost income figure to reflect cost savings): > [@](#): > > In calculating the pecuniary loss suffered by each of the appellants, the assessor considered what sums the appellants would have earned if they had been at liberty but which they had been unable to earn because they were in prison. No issue arises on that calculation. **But the assessor further considered that to award the appellants the whole of that sum would over-compensate them because, had they been at liberty, they would inevitably have incurred personal living expenses to provide the necessities of life which, because they were in prison (although wrongly and of course involuntarily), they had not incurred. So he deducted 25% from the appellants’ lost earnings as calculated to achieve the figure of what, in his judgment, the appellants had actually lost, the balance which would have been left to them after feeding, clothing and accommodating themselves if in fact they had earned the sums which it was calculated they would have earned if at liberty.** No issue arises on the percentage which the assessor used, but the appellants challenge the principle of making any deduction at all. The Queen’s Bench Administrative Court (Maurice Kay J) found in their favour on this issue but the Court of Appeal (Auld and Longmore LJJ and Gage J) upheld the assessor’s decision [2003] EWHC 855 (Admin); [2004] EWCA Civ 1035. The appellants contend that no deduction should have been made. This contention raises the first issue for decision by the House. _Id._ (Emphasis added). ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/18 "2009-03-21T19:54:15Z")
**hibernicus** and **clairobscur**. No and No.In the first instance its a false imprisonment, which is a tort not to mention a crime, second seems to be gratituious providing of good and or services. In the instances mentioned, it was a lawful imprisonment folllowing a conviction by a properly constituted tribunral with appropriate juridiction and a sentance awarded by a competant court. Damages and restitution is a highly complex area, the main parctioners work on it in England and Wales, McGregor is about 3000 pages in the last edition. However some basic principals are **You can only claim for losses actually suffered** **due to the mishap** An illustration Convict X earned 30,000 pounds a year after tax. Was imprisoned for three years, lost job. Turned out imprisonment was wrong. Losses? 30,000 x 3= 90,000 But From that figure you deduct anything which he did not lose or gain as a result of imprisonment. So lets say he got a severance package (unlikely in real life but for the sake of argument) of 10,000 a year. That means 90,000-30,000=60,000 Lets say 5,000 a year was spent on food and lodging. That would mean 60,000-15,000= 45,000 That reflects his actual loss. You can’t award him the 30,000 that I deducted above, he did not lose 30,000 due to the mishap. Nor can you award him the 15,000 in expense, he would have had to pay himself for that if the mishap had not occurred. 45,000 pounds is thus in our example the actual figure that is lost due to the mishap. Secondly, please Gfactor, don’t rely on the Daily Mail. Finally \*\*He is not actually being asked to “pay for his imprisonment”. He is being compansated for his loss to to the mishap. \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/19 "2009-03-21T19:57:50Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Secondly, please Gfactor, don’t rely on the Daily Mail. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202/20 "2009-03-21T22:05:32Z")
So how are older releasees supposed to save for when they can no longer work? Say you’ve been in jail for 20+ years and are 55 on release. You’ve got none of the assets, particularly the pension fund, that someone of your age would normally have. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-prisoners-falsely-accused-and-exonerated-get-in-recompense/490202.md?page=2)