4 ms·

Do all states have compensation statutes? The federal government, the District of Columbia, and 36 states have compensation statutes of some form. The followin

by scrps 5y ago

Do all states have compensation statutes? The federal government, the District of Columbia, and 36 states have compensation statutes of some form. The following 14 states do not: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming. https://innocenceproject.org/compensating-wrongly-convicted/ https://innocenceproject.org/compensating-wrongly-convicted/

reducesuffering 5y ago
Anyone want to summarize the argument of these 14 states that isn't "Yes, we as a society locked up an innocent for 30 years, but now that they're free we don't owe them anything"..?
- GavinMcG 5y ago
  Why would they need an argument? Politics isn't about who has the better argument. It's just that no one in those states has (so far) had the skill, energy, and resources to organize political change on the issue.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    the legal argument in the U.S for not giving compensation (as I recall) tends to be you should only be compensated if there was legal irregularities (cough, cough) that resulted in your incarceration - for example falsification of evidence, withholding evidence by the police, forced confessions etc. So if things were fair and followed correctly and you were by mistake locked up that's too bad, regrettable but not the state's fault and as such the state does not need to compensate you.
    - beerandt 5y ago
      Or put another way: a legal conviction is still legally correct even if it ends up being factually wrong. Compensation would generally require the accused (the State, or it's agents in this case) to do something illegal, or at least legally incorrect, to be held legally responsible, and therefore financially responsible.
- hedora 5y ago
  Most of those states are historically racist.
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    States that are not historically racist?
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      I don't know that there are states that are not historically racist, but we could assume there are states that are less historically racist than others - states without slavery and large pro-abolition movements might be better situated for historical morality, or states without sundown towns or counties.
      - beerandt 5y ago
        Don't forget that most of the states against slavery, were also against those slaves being present in the country at all. It wasn't until war was pretty much inevitable that many, including Lincoln, started to realize that moving towards freedom/equality was the winning move, strategically, practically, and politically. Even after admitting equality was the answer, he still wrote plenty of extremely racist rants about he didn't mean that legal equality didn't mean that the races were ever capable of being equal, etc. The other blatant example that people misinterpret is the 3/5 compromise in the constitution. It often gets framed that the slave states valued slaves lives as less (3/5) than free persons, but remember that the northern states that were against slavery were also against counting slaves as constitutional persons at all: they wanted 0/5s.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > It often gets framed that the slave states valued slaves lives as less (3/5) than free persons, but remember that the northern states that were against slavery were also against counting slaves as constitutional persons at all: they wanted 0/5s. This actually gets the 3/5 compromise wrong worse than the view it (correctly) points to as being wrong. The 3/5 compromise isn’t about “constitutional personhood” of slaves at all. The southern states actually wanted 5/5 (which they ended up after the war, when they replaced chattel slavery with penal slavery) and the northern states wanted 0/5 — which is how 3/5 was a “compromise” — because the issue wasn’t about how much legal personhood slaves were granted (which was zero and not being negotiated), it was about how much voting power in the federal government the people allowed to vote in slave states got as a bonus for having them in bondage. The position of the northern states was “if you keep humans in a condition where they are legally something like livestock or industrial machines, you don’t get any more extra votes for having them than you would for livestock or industrial machines.”
- tomatotomato37 5y ago
  Status quo and a governance which would rather work on "sexier" political issues. I'm sure if you polled the citizens of those respective states you'd fine overwhelming support for compensation, but that doesn't bring in the votes the same way [hot political issue] does
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
Thanks, I had no idea things had progressed so far, I basing my opinions on out of date perceptions I see now. On the other hand 14 states not compensating is not good.

by scrps 5y ago

reducesuffering 5y ago

Anyone want to summarize the argument of these 14 states that isn't "Yes, we as a society locked up an innocent for 30 years, but now that they're free we don't owe them anything"..?

GavinMcG 5y ago
Why would they need an argument? Politics isn't about who has the better argument. It's just that no one in those states has (so far) had the skill, energy, and resources to organize political change on the issue.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  the legal argument in the U.S for not giving compensation (as I recall) tends to be you should only be compensated if there was legal irregularities (cough, cough) that resulted in your incarceration - for example falsification of evidence, withholding evidence by the police, forced confessions etc. So if things were fair and followed correctly and you were by mistake locked up that's too bad, regrettable but not the state's fault and as such the state does not need to compensate you.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    Or put another way: a legal conviction is still legally correct even if it ends up being factually wrong. Compensation would generally require the accused (the State, or it's agents in this case) to do something illegal, or at least legally incorrect, to be held legally responsible, and therefore financially responsible.
hedora 5y ago
Most of those states are historically racist.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  States that are not historically racist?
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    I don't know that there are states that are not historically racist, but we could assume there are states that are less historically racist than others - states without slavery and large pro-abolition movements might be better situated for historical morality, or states without sundown towns or counties.
    - beerandt 5y ago
      Don't forget that most of the states against slavery, were also against those slaves being present in the country at all. It wasn't until war was pretty much inevitable that many, including Lincoln, started to realize that moving towards freedom/equality was the winning move, strategically, practically, and politically. Even after admitting equality was the answer, he still wrote plenty of extremely racist rants about he didn't mean that legal equality didn't mean that the races were ever capable of being equal, etc. The other blatant example that people misinterpret is the 3/5 compromise in the constitution. It often gets framed that the slave states valued slaves lives as less (3/5) than free persons, but remember that the northern states that were against slavery were also against counting slaves as constitutional persons at all: they wanted 0/5s.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > It often gets framed that the slave states valued slaves lives as less (3/5) than free persons, but remember that the northern states that were against slavery were also against counting slaves as constitutional persons at all: they wanted 0/5s. This actually gets the 3/5 compromise wrong worse than the view it (correctly) points to as being wrong. The 3/5 compromise isn’t about “constitutional personhood” of slaves at all. The southern states actually wanted 5/5 (which they ended up after the war, when they replaced chattel slavery with penal slavery) and the northern states wanted 0/5 — which is how 3/5 was a “compromise” — because the issue wasn’t about how much legal personhood slaves were granted (which was zero and not being negotiated), it was about how much voting power in the federal government the people allowed to vote in slave states got as a bonus for having them in bondage. The position of the northern states was “if you keep humans in a condition where they are legally something like livestock or industrial machines, you don’t get any more extra votes for having them than you would for livestock or industrial machines.”
tomatotomato37 5y ago
Status quo and a governance which would rather work on "sexier" political issues. I'm sure if you polled the citizens of those respective states you'd fine overwhelming support for compensation, but that doesn't bring in the votes the same way [hot political issue] does

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

Thanks, I had no idea things had progressed so far, I basing my opinions on out of date perceptions I see now. On the other hand 14 states not compensating is not good.