Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by femto 1 day ago
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

2 comments

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.
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.

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