this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
214 points (98.6% liked)

World News

38262 readers
2963 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 85 points 1 year ago (3 children)

“Wins”, really? That’s a disgusting way of putting it. He’s compensated for time spent in prison, but the time will be forever lost.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not to mention that, while objectively a lot of money to most people, $4m is a piss-poor compensation for 18 years of your life!

[–] hoshikarakitaridia 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

That is 26$/h spent in prison. Take that for what you will, but it's hard for me to define how to compensate someone fairly for wrongful imprisonment. Money comes, money goes, but time only passes. It won't come back.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, $26/h is a good rate for work wages, but not for losing a major chunk of your life and the resulting trauma from it. Contrary to some "tough guy" portrayals in fiction, your psyche and relationship with society WILL be forever fractured from being caged for so long , no matter how you were before.

I wouldn't wish that on GUILTY prisoners, let alone someone who was wrongfully convicted like in this case.

[–] Aurenkin 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yeah it really is hard to quantify. Even just taking into account the financial aspect if he was working during that time he would have been developing skills and becoming worth more to employ as well. He's effectively 18 years behind career and skills wise where he could have been.

EDIT: shit, it's even worse than that.

"Alan was 24 when he was arrested. He is now 61."

It also said he had an intellectual disability. I don't know how severe it is but being a convicted murderer for most of your life would Rob you of so many opportunities. Fucking hell.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I was confused at first because 61 - 24 isn't 18, but then realized he did have a length of time out on parole before he was sent back for violating parole.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

It works out about $15 US or £12 or €14 p.h.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

It's not even 2.4 million USD. That's not nearly enough.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Courts have a really hard time admitting to any wrongdoing. When someone innocent gets released, they see it as a loss, because they don't care about justice. They decided this man was guilty for whatever reason, and a win for them would have been to keep him imprisoned. His innocence is irrelevant to their decision.