Compensate the Wrongfully Convicted

Compensation for the wrongfully convicted?

I can't believe this is even a question still! Whether or not to compensate people after being wrongfully convicted and spending years, sometimes decades in prison. First of all, there is no way to actually compensate a wrongfully convicted person who has lost years of their life behind bars. The definition of compensation is:

something given or received as an equivalent for services, debt, loss, injury, suffering, lack, etc.

compensation definition | Dictionary.com

The equivalent of what a wrongfully convicted person has lost, would be to go back in time, reverse the conviction and give that person his life back. But we all know that's not possible, right? So something a lot less than compensation will have to do.

His voice breaking, Joseph White told a legislative committee Thursday he lost 20 years of his son’s life while he was in prison for the murder of Helen Wilson.

“I can’t get back the time with him,” he said, holding up a photo of his son as a baby and another of him today at 21. “I can’t go back and teach my boy to ride a bicycle or drive a car.”

Do you think this man would give up the idea of any monetary "compensation" to be able to go back and have this time with his son again? Yes. The money is not the point. The point is, the prosecutors, the police, the judge and jury all did something wrong sending this man to prison, they took away his ability to build a life for himself, they took away his ability to support himself, to develop skills with which he could work and be paid. They took all of this away from him and now he is expected to just walk out of prison after 20 years, for something he did not do, and get a job at McDonald's? He's just supposed to suck it up, shrug his shoulders and go on with life, living with his mother at 46 years of age? What?

This guy's comment really rubs me the wrong way:

herbie

Feb 20, 2009 9:12 PM

Maybe you shouldn't have plead guilty in the first place. No compensation should be handed out.

This goes back to what I was saying yesterday: I don't think people really grasp the concept of innocence in cases like this. People have a hard time getting past anyone having done prison time for something they have, or have not committed. People also seem to be so ignorant when it comes to false confessions and how awfully common they are. More information about false confessions can be found here: http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/False-Confessions.php

Of course these people should be compensated. It simply should not even be a question anymore. These people have been wronged, they have committed no crime and do not deserve to be treated like criminals. They have a right to support themselves after all means of self-support have been taken away from them. It is right, and just and there is no valid argument against it.

Technorati Tags: wrongful conviction, wrongfully convicted, innocence, compensation