Comment by zhivota
16 days ago
I like the theory of this comment. The actual numbers probably wouldn't work, but the theory is sound.
The payment for wrong prosecution would create a back pressure on the justice system which is currently only possible via media reporting, something generally only accessible to the powerful or otherwise sympathetic defendant. We'd need a category of dismissal which is "innocent", where a judge determines not only is the person "not guilty", but that actually, with proper investigation and application of thought, the prosecution could have determined innocence beforehand themselves. This should come with the payment and automatic complete expungement of all records, and an entry in the local newspaper of the declared innocence of the defendant.
Then the last piece of the puzzle would be outlawing police and prosecutor unions, and firing police and prosecutors who have poor records of sending "innocent" cases to trial. This would serve to create a pressure towards correct prosecution.
Abstractly I would say not guilty means innocent. But having just sat on a jury for a drunk driving case where the defendant seemingly did do what was alleged but yet the key evidence was excluded in limine (for philosophical reasons that I consider very good), I see where you're coming from.
But the difficulty then becomes addressing the perverse incentive of "innocent" vs "not guilty" (I don't love your terms but I'm just reusing them), where a local judge is incentivized to declare merely "not guilty" to save the city money. While things are always going to come down to the frailty of human judgement, it seems like this might be a setup to "change things" while the status quo doesn't actually change.
I'd also still question why there really needs to be two separate categories. Most of the harm in this case is coming from elective overzealous actions by the police. If they had to pay for damages they caused to any "not guilty", then they'd work to reduce those damages (no extradition, lower/no bail, etc). For the case that I was on, the damages would seemingly be limited to one night at the police station, and attorney fees. And most of the cost of the attorney was only necessary due to the prosecution insisting on bringing a case it knew it wouldn't win. So if the defendant is truly "not guilty" (as we the jury quickly found), then why should the defendant be on the hook for those costs-as-punishment ?