WHAT do you give someone who's been proved innocent after spending the
best part of their life behind bars, wrongfully convicted of a crime
they didn't commit?
3,000 pounds per year is actually a bargain. By this Labor
Minister's logic, the innocent man should also have been billed for
the expense of the guards and depreciation on the prison walls.
An apology, maybe? Counselling?
Champagne? Compensation? Well, if you’re David Blunkett, the Labour
Home Secretary, the choice is simple: you give them a big, fat bill
for the cost of board and lodgings for the time they spent freeloading
at Her Majesty's Pleasure in British prisons.
On Tuesday,
Blunkett will fight in the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the
right to charge victims of miscarriages of justice more than £3000 for
every year they spent in jail while wrongly convicted. The logic is
that the innocent man shouldn't have been in prison eating free
porridge and sleeping for nothing under regulation grey blankets.
Blunkett's fight has been described as "outrageous", "morally
repugnant" and the "sickest of sick jokes", but his spokesmen in the
Home Office say it's a completely "reasonable course of action" as the
innocent men and women would have spent the money anyway on food and
lodgings if they weren’t in prison.
What *should* be done about false convictions? There are two cases to consider:
1. A person who was probably innocent, and thus released. This person should be compensated for his material losses, including an appropriate wage rate for his time, with interest, and a fixed extra amount for his suffering-- perhaps $100 per day of imprisonment.
2. A person who was probably guilty, but was released because his conviction was improper, because he was pardoned, or because evidence was discovered which made it seem he was, while probably guilty,not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This person should not be compensated.
I would have a government agency decide the category into which the person belongs, with a right of appeal to the courts for clear error.
The same reasoning applies to those not convicted but who bear the cost of trials (or pre-trial detention). If the government loses, it should pay compensation. I would except small amounts of detention--- overnight in jail, for example.
[in full at 04.03.20a.htm . Erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]
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