Posted on 09/04/2009 1:26:31 PM PDT by BJClinton
Exonerees will get $80,000 for each year they spent behind bars. The compensation also includes lifetime annuity payments that for most of the wrongly convicted are worth between $40,000 and $50,000 a year — making it by far the nation's most generous package.
Dallas County alone has 21 cases in which a judge overturned guilty verdicts based on DNA evidence, though prosecutors plan to retry one of those.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Interesting that you rate a person’s worth by what they earn.
“To whites, most Asians all look alike”
Yeah, I’m constantly mistaking my wife for Linda Liu, even though Linda is Chinese and my wife is Japanese. And, man! How am I supposed to pick my kids out of a crowd.
After a little thought, I guess the reason I reacted to that is that I’m just bloody tired of everyone badmouthing white people. Especially when the criticsm is nothing but an empty stereotype.
“but we are, all of us, responsible”
If you want to argue that they should be treated well, okay, but don’t try to blame me for what people I don’t know did in a different state 30 years ago.
In most of these it’s apparent that the victim sincerely believed the innocent person was the rapist.
The victims are often strongly pressured by police towards certain suspects, and lineups have the tendency to cause a victim to pick SOMEONE.
And that people have trouble telling people of other races than their own apart has actually been demonstrated experimentally.
It’s not a race-specific phenomenon. Blacks (particularly Black Africans) and Asian (especially Asians in Asia) have difficulty telling Caucasians apart, as well.
Yes, well, that’s not the way the other fellow presented it.
I bet women and children lie all the time about sexual assault. So do police and prosecutors. I used to believe in our system completely, but there are too many immoral people.
Gen. 4:9And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?
... and all that rot.
Since I am a Texan, though I've never lived in Dallas, I am more directly responsible than you. But we all bear some responsibility. Not blame --- but the responsibility to do your part to make sure that such things don't happen in your baliwick.
"Skin shade" tags don't work with white people, for example, and I still have trouble with certain eye colors, not to mention the whole concept of "tan."
YMMV.
LOL, right. Prison must be the best place to learn. I mean, one must be so full of hope and cheer, when thrown into prison, wrongfully and for the long term.
“It should be pointed out 85% or so of these cases the rapist was identified by the victim.”
If 85% if then lie, that would make a good case for not believing the victim...
LOL, right. Prison must be the best place to learn. I mean, one must be so full of hope and cheer, when thrown into prison, wrongfully and for the long term.
Would sulking and feeling sorry for oneself make YOU feel better? Doing NOTHING to improve one’s self is hardly admirable no matter what the circumstance.
Being wrongfully thrown into prison would qualify as one of those things that can irreparably damage one’s self-esteem to an extent that all hope is lost, often permanently.
Getting a college degree would be the absolute last thing in one’s mind, when his entire life has been destroyed.
Good grief!
If I was unjustly thrown in prison, I'd make sure I was properly educated and hit the law books. Many have done just that. I am thankful that most don't have such fragile, touchy feely egos as you suggest. Liberalism isn't becoming to even you ... .
“Getting a college degree would be the absolute last thing in one’s mind, when his entire life has been destroyed.”
Do you know that some “convicts” in prison justly or not write some decent books in prison? Being unjustly imprisoned is not the “destruction” of one's life. I'm so glad our founders and other great men in history don't have your liberal touchy feely mentality. Toughen up! Your feminine side needs to be toned down.
I wonder how many of the Founding Fathers were thrown into prison for 20-30 years, falsely accused of RAPE, convicted and jailed. Do you have any idea? Ten? Five? Zero?
Get a clue. It’s one thing to be thrown into prison for being a rebel. It’s entirely different to be done so, for crimes where one is permanently relegated by society as an outcaste. Being convicted of rape does that. Being convicted of paedophilia does that. Attacking a British post and being imprisoned for it, doesn’t.
Imagine yourself being imprisoned for molesting a child, and having your entire family, friends and bosses believe the judgment as just. Then come out after 20-30 years and try to redeem yourself after violent episodes of sodomy and what-not, within the confinement. You think it will work? A convict’s word against a jury’s. Over paedophilia. Yea, that’ll wash.
“I wonder how many of the Founding Fathers were thrown into prison for 20-30 years, falsely accused of RAPE, convicted and jailed. Do you have any idea? Ten? Five? Zero?”
You really are rattled over this, aren’t you?
You even compare apples to elephants to try and justify your view. Society was quite different then ... there is absolutely no comparison to the “cutlure” we have today.
“Get a clue. It’s one thing to be thrown into prison for being a rebel. It’s entirely different to be done so, for crimes where one is permanently relegated by society as an outcaste. Being convicted of rape does that. Being convicted of paedophilia does that. Attacking a British post and being imprisoned for it, doesn’t.”
Maybe you need to “get a clue”. When your record is expunged and it is made public there is no more issue. DBA is powerful evidence when used PROPERLY.
I have no idea how you compare attacking a “British post” to the issue here. Please, get back on your meds!
“Imagine yourself being imprisoned for molesting a child, and having your entire family, friends and bosses believe the judgment as just. Then come out after 20-30 years and try to redeem yourself after violent episodes of sodomy and what-not, within the confinement. You think it will work? A convict’s word against a jury’s. Over paedophilia. Yea, that’ll wash.”
I have no reason to “imagine” that I am a pedophile and I hope you don’t either ... although you are pretty worked up over this particular issue ... What goes on in prison is beyond my control.
Look, why don’t YOU personally put YOUR money where YOUR hysterical mouth is - YOU BAIL THEM OUT! I have made other suggestions that you make a point of ignoring. Seriously, sell your house and other assets and YOU bail them out.
“Gen. 4:9And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?”
None of those people is my brother.
“I am more directly responsible than you.”
Oh, so you intentionally or negligently played a role in the wrongful conviction of innocent people? If so, then okay, you’re responsible for the wrongful convictions of *those* people. If not, then it’s not responsibilty, it’s just white liberal guilt.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2328179/posts
“But we all bear some responsibility...to do your part to make sure that such things don’t happen in your baliwick.”
We can’t even keep the sodomites out of grade-school classrooms. We have no power to affect events, and won’t, until enough real Americans are ready to man the barricades.
I can’t even figure out if I should make a big deal out of the Bamtard’s speech, or just keep my offspring home, and there’s not a bloody thing I can do to keep leftist scum from passing the bar exam and being elected or appointed as judges.
“Being wrongfully thrown into prison would qualify as one of those things that can irreparably damage one’s self-esteem to an extent that all hope is lost, often permanently.”
He’s right. Every man has his breaking point. Some men are very, very strong, but is a man to be blamed if he is only middling, average strong?
We often hear people say, “If I can do it, anyone can.” However, if the person speaking is a superior individual, he is mistaken. Most of humanity can *not* do whatever it is that he’s speaking of.
That’s not touchy-feely or liberal guilt; it’s just a fact of human nature.
Hahaha!
YOU are the government, Sir! You SHARE responsibility for its actions AND inactions.
As others have pointed out to you here, there is NO real way of “expunging” something that has been allowed to dig in for 20-30 years.
As for the rest of your rant, it points to a clear streak of insecurity, reinforced by false bravado- always the first to crack under pressure. If only I could’ve had pennies for each time I met one of your types!
This man was thrown in jail under false accusation, and it has been shown a number of times that that does happen (one case in Oklahoma had a medical specialist give false evidence for years). These are normally people who cannot mount a cogent legal defense, and the prosecution simply wants the whole thing over quick. Any real evidence otherwise is thrown out, and a quick open-and-shut case occurs. Many years later, some people working through a huge backlog trying to find (using funds from donors) innocent people finally manage to prove beyond a doubt that it wasn't the person. The person is freed ...in this case many years later. The state obviously cannot give the person his time back, thus they do the next best thing when it comes to units of payment - give him some money.
It is not about how much he would have made ...but rather about his lost freedom. Now, whose fault is it? It is not yours, as a tax payer, thus it is understandable why you would be annoyed this man was compensated for his freedom. However, it was the state's fault, and thus the state has to pay. Sadly, you pay taxes to the state, thus it is your taxes. Those are the breaks ...in the same way if a father buys a house that is too expensive for his income, and he defaults ...and as a result he and his family (say 3 kids) are homeless, then it is simply too sad for the kids, but they also have to pay for their father's mistakes. Is it the childrens' fault that their father did not have a good cap on his finances? No ...but they are still out of a house.
This man, in my opinion, is not being compensated for what he would have earned! There is no way to know how much, or even if he would still be alive if he was outside prison (maybe he would have been run over by a lawnmower 26 years ago had he not been sent to prison). But the fact of the matter is that he was imprisoned unjustly, and he should not have. It is that simple. Is it sad that your taxes (are your taxes really paying for this ...as in you as NMH) make up a hundredth of a thousandth percent of that pay-off, but the state has to pay. If it was you, you'd also not be exactly jubilant if you spent decades in jail for rape, when you did not do it. You say it's too bad if he was raped in prison, but if it was your offspring getting raped in prison when he shouldn't have been there in the first place, you probably wouldn't be as nonchalant. And if it was your daughter who was raped, and you find out that the REAL perp has been enjoying freedom for the last twenty something years, you wouldn't be as uncaring.
Anyways, as a Christian I hope this man finds salvation and peace in all that he has had to go through every single day for the last two and a half decades, and I am also glad that he at least gets something to take care of his physical needs for the time he has left.
Instead of moaning over his payment (which is less what a blue-collar UAW worker with no key skills would be paid for putting a portion of a car together assuming a basic 40 hour week over 26 years - although in this former convict's case with no insurance or pension), I would rather direct that ire at the prosecution and system that allows people like OJ to waltz out, and sends people who cannot even mount a proper legal defense to jail as if their lives did not matter. That's where my anger rests ...not on some guy who now has to figure out what to do with his life (I pray he has some sort of financial consultant to ensure the money doesn't go ...and 1.9 million is actually very little money).
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