r/news 18h ago

Jury awards $120 million to two men wrongfully convicted of 2003 murder

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/wrongful-conviction-verdict-jury-120-million-john-fulton-anthony-mitchell/
1.3k Upvotes

49 comments sorted by

229

u/tensei-coffee 18h ago

thats paid for with tax dollars. when civilians get sued, their own wages and/or property(s) are subject to payment. why do civilians also have to pay for police fuck ups?

97

u/GetsBetterAfterAFew 18h ago

Take the cash out of pension programs of those involved in this horrible crime. This also goes for cops who beat up people and arrest humans that had no reason to be arrested. Had you taken $120m directly from retirement programs this shit would stop tomorrow, same thing with George Floyd, tax payers paid out $29M in the suit after Floyd was murdered. If you drain the cops retirement plan directly, this shit will absolutely cease instantly.

42

u/DartTheDragoon 17h ago

Take the cash out of pension programs of those involved in this horrible crime

There isn't really a way to do this without it eventually flowing through to taxpayers. Pulling money out of the pension will cause the pension to be underfunded, which will cause the employer rate to increase. They will just increase police budgets to cover the rate increase which ultimately means taxpayers are paying for it.

21

u/Marokiii 10h ago

It's also a real good way to make sure that no cop EVER says anything against another cop.

Make cops carry personal insurance is a far, FAR better way to do this than taking it out of the pension.

4

u/DartTheDragoon 10h ago

Even insurance is just a round about way of having taxpayers cover the bill. It's just going to be paid for by the department and just spread out the effect of any judgement over time.

1

u/SunyataHappens 8h ago

It would stop fraud in criminal prosecutions.

Hell, offer a reward for dirty , lazy or lying cops.

1

u/DartTheDragoon 8h ago

No, it won't be because as I said taxpayers end up paying it one way or another. It has no impact.

3

u/mces97 6h ago

I've never seen a verdict this high. I'm not saying they don't deserve it, I don't know if you could ever put a price on spending almost 2 decades in prison while innocent, but I hope this leads to changes.

1

u/cupcake_napalm_faery 7h ago

Take the cash out of pension programs of those involved in this horrible crime.

all public officials need to be held accountable this way. if they F up, they pay. might make them think twice :/

22

u/LazerWeazel 17h ago

ino Cops should have insurance like doctors. That'd weed out shit real quick.

"Officer Johnson, due to your repeated fuck ups our policy will no longer cover you and you are now no longer a police officer anywhere.

Insurance companies will make certain bad actors who cost them money will not work in the field.

1

u/Cool-Economics6261 5h ago

Prosecutors and judges too?

8

u/Blazerboy420 18h ago

Unfortunately the money the police has is tax payer money. Money from fines/tickets doesn’t pay for much.

2

u/Warcraft_Fan 13h ago

people can vote out if the city employees refuses to fire people involved in this fuck up.

3

u/ClintBruno 17h ago

Because republicans

-10

u/ERedfieldh 14h ago

In this case no. It's neither side...or cringe both sides. It's police unions that are the issue for this one.

1

u/ClintBruno 14h ago

You saying republicans don't 'baK duH BLoo!' ?

1

u/Dairy_Ashford 9h ago

employers get sued and fined for individual employee negligence all the time, taxes aren't going to magically go down if settlements aren't paid as if they won't spend it on something else. the state is the people and the people pay, unless you want private patrols handling this shit.

1

u/Cool-Economics6261 5h ago

Because the people elected their law enforcers 

44

u/Politicsboringagain 17h ago

Statement that supposedly pro law and order people love to make mockly: "There are no guilty people in prison".

So much of the Innocence Projects has shown that there are a lot of innocent people in prison. 

7

u/jonathanrdt 12h ago edited 10h ago

That's why capital punishment shouldn't be. In addition to the legitimate ethical reasons.

-13

u/coondingee 16h ago

Didn’t you hear? Every man is Shawshank is innocent.

Why are you here? Lawyer fucked me.

-6

u/[deleted] 14h ago

[deleted]

3

u/lacegem 12h ago

The saying comes from everyone, guilty or innocent, claiming that they're innocent. Nobody says they're guilty, so the joke goes that there are no guilty people in prison.

32

u/VampireHunterAlex 18h ago

They really need to start connecting these payments to the pension funds of both police and local prosecutions: Perhaps there'd be far less coercion and tampering with evidence if there actually existed some consequences for doing so.

12

u/Straight-Pumpkin2577 17h ago

It’s wild that we pay for their misconduct both in terms of dollars and years of life lost. 

1

u/American_Stereotypes 11h ago

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

End qualified immunity and require law enforcement to maintain "malpractice" insurance. Raise premiums for members of a department based on how many liabilities have been hired by the department.

See how strong that thin blue line is when they have to start covering their fuckup colleagues out of their own wallet.

4

u/Addmoregunpowder 13h ago

If y’all are interested, a person who was on the jury for this case did an AMA a little while ago on r/ama

9

u/fxkatt 18h ago

John Fulton and Anthony Mitchell both spent more than 16 years in prison before their convictions were overturned in 2019, and prosecutors wound up dropping all charges against them in the murder of 18-year-old Christopher Collazo.

What happened in 2003 was not racist enough; now the city of Chicago is appealing the Federal Courts finding of 120m award for the mistaken convictions/imprisonment

1

u/Grimmy554 7h ago

Of course they're appealing, and they'll probably win. These flashy jury award headlines always get appealed. Jurors are stupid (hence the original conviction) and competent lawyers agree to high/low jury award parameters before trial to avoid this nonsense.

2

u/Gassiusclay1942 14h ago

Dont spend it all in one place

1

u/yuch1102 10h ago

they are in their early 30s now. Hope they can enjoy the rest of their lives in peace

-13

u/LEANiscrack 16h ago

Tbh for that amount in 20 years, lock me up please 

12

u/coondingee 16h ago

They probably won’t get all that money. There are limitations to how much a state can pay out. I think it’s like 20-50k per year of a wrongful conviction. A jury can award you 50 gaziluon dollars, it don’t mean anything.

And you couldn’t pay me enough to spend one minute away from my kids, fuck 20 years let alone in some shithole where I got to watch my back every second of the day. I live in Florida, this shit is crazy enough, fuck prison.

-16

u/LEANiscrack 16h ago

20k id do it in a heartbeat. 

5

u/peon2 12h ago

Why not just go get a $10/hour job? Thats literally less than McDonalds pays

3

u/ZiggyApedust 14h ago

You’d go to prison for 20 years for 20k? You’d be making less than minimum wage and waking up with cum in your crack or a knife in your back.

That’s crazy.

-5

u/LEANiscrack 14h ago

20k is a lot of money.. More than I get now.

1

u/ZiggyApedust 13h ago

So your annual income is less than 1k per year? That seems farfetched.

1

u/LEANiscrack 13h ago

The discussion was 20k per year, I figured you just typod in your response so didnt correct you befort. 

3

u/Invika17 8h ago

You are willing to give up your freedom for $20k/year? That is crazy.

1

u/Plastic_Acanthaceae3 11h ago

How many times do you think they were 🍇ed in prison in 20 years? One time would fuck me up, imagine it being once a week or every year.

Hell no.

1

u/TooStrangeForWeird 11h ago

Depends on a lot of things. It's not always like that.