this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
89 points (97.8% liked)

News

27476 readers
4177 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Earlier this year, Michael Woolfolk attended a legislative committee in Georgia where lawmakers considered for a third year whether to compensate the 45-year-old for the 19 years he spent behind bars for a 2002 killing before charges against him were dismissed.

Behind him sat Daryl Lee Clark, also 45, who spent 25 years in prison for a 1998 murder conviction that was vacated over a series of legal and police errors. It was his second attempt to obtain compensation.

Georgia is one of 11 states with no law on compensating people found to have been wrongfully convicted. Individuals seeking compensation take their cases to the legislature, where they seek a lawmaker to sponsor a resolution to pay them. Critics say it mires the process in politics.

Lawmakers have been considering legislation to move the decision to judges, but now it’s unclear if that will pass this year.

“We need to take care simply of people who have lost so many years of their lives and their ability to make money, have a job, have a family, create stability,” Republican Rep. Katie Dempsey, a sponsor of the Georgia bill, told The Associated Press. “Many are at the age where they would be looking at their savings, and instead, there’s none.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

the least you can do is give me a boatload of cash so I can spend several years or even the rest of my life (depending on how long you fucked me over, some of these people get fucked for decades) not working and like traveling the world or whatever to make up for it.

The amount of money that's paid out for this is pitiful in comparison to how much you'd need to actually feel compensated. It's $50k-$100k per year of imprisonment (depending on state and length of imprisonment), so for 20 years you're getting (in most states) $2 million or so, but then you're charged for services rendered while you were imprisoned in most states - for example, health insurance, room and board, etc., which severely reduce that value. Even if you got the full $2 million, you've lost 20 years - and the career development you would have had during that time - not to mention technology has likely completely moved on from what you remember. Good luck getting anything more than a minimum wage job at that point, and $2 million is not going to last you for the rest of your life unless you were already 50 or so when you were convicted.

To be clear, I agree with you that people falsely convicted should be monetarily compensated. Just pointing out that current compensation is embarrassingly low.