400
Crystal Mason: Texas woman sentenced to five years over voting error acquitted
(www.theguardian.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
400 points (99.3% liked)
News
23311 readers
1259 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
And here I thought everything was bigger in Texas.
It is!
AFAICT, Texas has relatively generous laws for recovery of damages after wrongful imprisonment. In addition to the payout ($80K/yr, prorated), you get an annuity. In some cases you can even get free tuition at a state university. Whereas in most states, you can't sue at all.
$40,000 is not generous.
Hence my emphasis on "relatively". That would be $25K in Michigan, and $0 in most states.
So technically, it is bigger in Texas.
That is simply false.
https://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/2024/01/michigan-man-awarded-17m-from-state-after-spending-36-years-in-prison-for-crime-he-didnt-commit.html
The law is described incorrectly. They wrote (my emphasis):
But when you click on the link you find:
So by Michigan law he was entitled to $50K/yr, which is less than provided by Texas law ($80K/yr + other benefits).
And of course $50K/yr over 36 years is roughly the $1.75 million he received. If it were actually per day, he would have gotten over $600 million.
Originally you said:
So which is it?
She was incarcerated for a few months, not an entire year. The $80K/yr is prorated, so most likely she can get something under $40K.
You certainly didn't make that clear. And even for a few months of wrongful incarceration (along with the years of having to spend time in court), $40,000 is pitiful. Absolutely pitiful.
"They don't pay as much in other states" doesn't make it any less pitiful.
Would you find that to be adequate compensation for destroying five years of your life for doing something that wasn't illegal?
Man, you just want to argue with anyone you can about anything you can, huh?
You're being unreasonable, replying to their observing that despite this being awful, they're somehow better than a bunch of other states.
I'm agreeing with them?
You certainly didn't make that clear.
Or true.
I never said it was adequate.
I replied to the suggestions that it doesn't matter because she already served her time (it actually does matter), that she should sue (she can but recovery is limited), and that everything is bigger in Texas (yes it is, relatively speaking).
Note that courts never compensate innocent people who are tied up in court, even for years. Compensation is only for people who are wrongfully incarcerated. Even in Texas.