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Exoneration isn’t the end of the story

zuzu

Check out this New York Times multimedia feature following a number of men who were imprisoned and then exonerated, sometimes after decades. They have trouble adjusting to life on the outside — even though they did not commit the crimes they were sent to prison for — and receive little help (or in some cases, compensation) from the state.

15 thoughts on Exoneration isn’t the end of the story

  1. They have trouble adjusting to life on the outside — even though they did not commit the crimes they were sent to prison for — and receive little help (or in some cases, compensation) from the state.

    It gets worse than that. Several months ago, there was a story about an exonerated man who on top of receiving no compensation for time he was unjustly imprisoned, but the state also charged him for the costs of keeping him imprisoned.

  2. I know this is stupidly naive of me to be surprised, but I was really struck by the proportion of black men. Is that representative of the prison population in the US– I mean, I know black men are much more likely to be imprisoned, but are they actually the vast majority of prisoners?
    Because if black guys are in fact getting exonerated at a rate disproportionate to their representation in the prison population, it is because they are more likely to be falsely imprisoned in the first place, and that tells you something. It doesn’t tell you anything new of course, but someone should study it.

    And I assume racism is playing its part in why these prisoners are not being helped on release. I thought the Birmingham Six had it bad (Irishmen framed by racist British police for terrorism, and they still had various Daily Scums casting doubt on their story when they were freed) but at least they were given a couple of hundred grand and a chance for their story to be told. This is just sick; I think the anonymity is what is most heartbreaking. Authority screwing people over that way and nobody caring makes it all seem so much more terrible.

  3. I was struck at first by how many of these guys were falsely jailed for sex crimes, but when you think about it, duh. What other kind of conviction is more likely to be reversed through DNA?

    But what gives me a chill is how many other people must have been falsely convicted of crimes where DNA exoneration is not an option. This is why I get really annoyed whenever I hear complaints that we’re not tough enough on crime in this country.

  5. I was struck at first by how many of these guys were falsely jailed for sex crimes

    Which is exactly why I don’t jump to the conclusion of guilt when someone is accused of rape (or any other crime).

  6. Kali,
    The disproportionate representation of black Americans in the U.S. criminal justice system is well documented.17 Blacks comprise 13 percent of the national population, but 30 percent of people arrested, 41 percent of people in jail,18 and 49 percent of those in prison.19 Nine percent of all black adults are under some form of correctional supervision (in jail or prison, on probation or parole), compared to two percent of white adults. 20 One in three black men between the ages of 20 and 29 was either in jail or prison, or on parole or probation in 1995.21 One in ten black men in their twenties and early thirties is in prison or jail. 22 Thirteen percent of the black adult male population has lost the right to vote because of felony disenfranchisement laws.23

  7. Yes, or when people start arguing that it is better for innocent people to suffer than let one guilty person go free.

    Do people seriously argue this? I’m a little jaded since I grew up with a criminal defense lawyer for a father, so I always heard the exact opposite. It doesn’t surprise me that people would make that argument, but it sure is depressing, isn’t it?

  8. Jill: I never heard it put in exactly those words, but Pat Buchanan once said, when someone raised the specter of an innocent person being executed: “Surgeons lose people on the operating table all the time. What’s the big deal?”

  12. Thing is, there is a cause of action for false imprisonment which could help these guys, but they have to sue rather than simply receive compensation. And if you don’t know that you can sue (the clock doesn’t start running on claims for false imprisonment and (iirc, though I may not rc) malicious prosecution until there’s a final favorable disposition of the case — but sometimes, you have to file a notice of claim very shortly after the cause of action arises because you’re suing a municipality or state), you may miss out on your chance to sue.

    Really, there should be a system set up where these guys get compensation as a matter of course, or courts start taking the initiative to hold hearings or order the state to show cause why they shouldn’t compensate the exonerated prisoner.

  13. Yeah. Skarka’s Law says that no matter how abhorrent or revolting a position is, there’s someone who will defend it.

    I should really stop being surprised when people in the feminist blogosphere turn out to be gamers and geeks.

    I mean, I ASSUME Skarka’s law hasn’t spread beyond those boundaries….

  15. Yes Zuzu, I learned about that fact long ago when I learned that when the school system failed to act on behalf of my son, when they knew their father was abusing them in his care (when he had custody).

    Only after the dust had settled after I regained custody and the proverbial emergency fires were put out with my children, was I able to see that I most of my problems began with the school’s failure to act. The two years it took for me to begin to look outside the cocoon of my son’s trauma was long enough for the school system to have escaped to the protection of the statute of limitations.

    Although my anecdote is certainly of a much smaller scale of loss, the end result is the same; justice avails itself only to those who know where to aim and have the ability to reach high enough to get it.

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