innocent man serves 39 years in jail and receives 1m$

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/20/court-awards-more-than-1-million-to-cleveland-man-who-was-wrongly-imprisoned-for-39-years-0

Still weird how this has happened though, seriously imprisoned because of one testimony

I think he should get a lot more. His life was ruined.

Giving him the compensation was a means to avoid being sued for more. Poor guy too, $1 million dollars was probably a lot more money 39 years ago.

It wasn't just that the witness lied either, the police coerced a false testimony from him.

I hope someone next to him has the good sense to tell him not to accept that money and to seek out a lawyer.

@indzman: just for some perspective...

• Upstate NY man wrongly convicted of rape wins $41.6M lawsuit, did a total of 17 years behind bars
• Wrongful conviction leads to record $20 million settlement, $1 million for each year he spent in prison
• Jury Awards $25M To Man For Wrongful Murder Conviction, spent 16 years behind bars

For this innocent guy serving 39 years behind bars, $1 million for his troubles, it's a slap to the face, a kick to the balls to put him down, then squatting over him and shitting in his mouth.

Exactly

Something's very wrong and strange on this particular case, is it because he is a poor black guy? Sorry i mean no offense.

You fucking serious?

He should be getting at least 50x that.

Since when the **** did testimonies on their own count as evidence anyway?

That's an incredibly small amount to make up for so many years of his life he won't be getting back.

No, generally when a party (in this case, the state of Ohio) is likely going to lose a lot more through the courts they try to nip it in the butt right away with a low-ball offer. The party doesn't have to accept and instead can take it to court in a civil lawsuit for more money. I've a feeling the lawyer he had through the Innocence Project is largely to blame for not explaining to him his legal options and he probably should have sought out a higher profile lawyer who specializes in such cases (and getting them to take the case of someone with such a sentence likely wouldn't have been hard). I imagine accepting this award is conditional in preventing him him suing the state of Ohio.

States usually have statutes that these initial offers use to determine compensation offers for wrongfully imprisoned, generally around $20K/year for each year served , and $50K/year for people tried in federal courts and placed in federal detention. Still, people can often get a lot more if they don't willingly accept these offers.

That's only 25k a year. What a joke.

That's sucks. Hope his life improves.

thats fucked up, amazing he didnt off himself with all that time. $1 million dollars seems like a slap in the face though after all those years.

I would settle for nothing less than 50 million for that amount of time, and for the prosecution of any still living officers involved in that sham.

$1M lol this guy's life sucks.

**** that shit he should be kicking up as much dirt as possible. That's preposterous.

See, here's the has it actually been proven that any police officers (living or dead) actually did coerce the "witness" into falsely testifying?

My point being: the issue here isn't that this man shouldn't have been convicted and sentenced based on eyewitness testimony that was coerced from the police. The issue here is that this man shouldn't have been convicted and sentenced based on eyewitness testimony AT ALL. With that in mind, what would it say about me if I immediately trusted this "eyewitness's" testimony against the police? What other evidence is there that the police actually did coerce him into lying, and is that enough evidence to warrant prosecuting the police?

1 Million? I think something went wrong here in the court, because there seriously should be at least two zeroes after that 1, making it 100 Million.

While a Million dollars certainly is quite a good sum of money, that's nothing after being imprisoned for 39 years, feels like being thrown in the slammer for that long was way too harsh of a punishment.

Yea 1 million for 39 years? People randomly sue people for any old shit and get more money than that.

That is adding insult to injury.

1 mil for 39 years... that's an insult. He lost a lifetime, 1 mil doesn't even start to make up for that.

So they are essentially paying him a near-minimum salary for his time spent.

Talk about a kick to the face.

He schould've gotten more because forget getting a good job after you served in prison!

To me 10 million would have been about right, 1 million is way too little.

But it has to be tax-free.

He's getting roughly $3 for every hour in prison.

the real punishment should be putting every lawyer involved in the case in jail for the same amount of time. this would prevent corrupt courts from doing this in the first place.

Uh...what?

Can you cite to me the evidence that any lawyers (be they on the side of the prosecution or defense) have engaged in a crime? Specifically, a crime which warrants them being imprisoned for 40 years?

And no, that's not just me throwing out shit. This is the second time someone has made that kind of comment here. First it was "throw the police in jail." Now it's "throw the lawyers in jail."

And, serious honest question...can we establish here that either the police or lawyers committed an actual CRIME? Furthermore, can we establish that either the police or lawyers committed a crime that warrants 40 YEARS IN PRISON? This is important. Because if not, it's just basically a case of "yes that dude should go to prison for 40 years, because **** him." And that's not good enough. That's especially hypocritical considering that this is actually such a real travesty because the guy was convicted and sentenced to prison on SHITTY EVIDENCE. So the solution to one guy getting wrongly fucked is to wrongly **** the guys who wrfongly fucked the first guy?

Can we establish that the police and/or lawyers actually committed a CRIME, and that there is still sufficient EVIDENCE to convict them of it after 40 years? Also, even IF the police and/or lawyers committed a crime, can we establish that the actual crime committed is one that warrants a 40 year sentence?

I await your evidence. I would REALLY like to see the hard proof that the police and/or lawyers committed a crime that is deserving of a 40 year prison sentence. And yes, that has to be pretty fucking solid evidence. Seeing as how the whole point of this story is that the guy was wronged by being convicted and sentenced based on flimsy evidence, it'd be a fucking travesty if we were willing to convict and sentence the police and lawyers based on equally flimsy evidence.

So, yes...PLEASE explain to me why every lawyer involved in the case should be put in jail for the same amount of time.