[Macha]

What the article doesn’t mention, since this was an incorrect conviction that led to a served 18 month sentence, loss of income from the loss of whatever job he had, and likely life long reputational damage (as this kind of conviction now needs to be explained and some people will adopt a “where there’s smoke there’s fire” attitude…) was there any compensation for this man? It sounds like all he got was voiding the conviction after he served the time. Not nothing, but seems pretty inadequate.

[femto]

Probably no compensation. Under "English" law (Canada is a Commonwealth country), the wrongful conviction will probably to taken to be without malice and reasonable given the information the US provided, so tough luck.

He might be able to negotiate an ex gratia payment, but this will be entirely at the whim of a politician, who will be looking to avoid being criticised for giving away government money

[PxldLtd]

We used to charge innocent men for room and board in prison after being released here in the UK not long ago. They only changed this in 2023 after uproar in a recent case of an innocent man being freed.

[tefkah]

That sounded so outlandish i needed to look it up, it's true... https://www.gov.uk/government/news/wrongly-convicted-no-long...

Although asterisk: those costs were being deducted from the final compensation. Still disgraceful that even happened.

[jkestner]

It’s currently the case in many US states: https://www.npr.org/2022/03/04/1084452251/the-vast-majority-...

[account42]

> the wrongful conviction will probably to taken to be without malice and reasonable given the information the US provided, so tough luck

Now imagine if this same standard was applied to individuals doing reckless but not inherently malicious things.

[thephyber]

Legal processes take time. The news doesn't wait until the entire process plays out before they start reporting on the news.

Apparently the appeal leading to the acquittal just happened last week.