Why Settlements Don’t Fix Wrongful Convictions
/It may seem to some a happy ending: A Brooklyn man wrongly convicted in a 1994 murder is at last cleared -- after serving 16 years in prison -- and then reaches a $10 million settlement with the city in the case.
Perhaps, says Senior Editor Joe Sexton, but it’s far from justice. “He will get his millions, but he won’t get his life back, and neither will his children or his family,” Sexton says, joining Managing Editor Robin Fields in the Storage Closet Studio to talk about the settlement.
While Collins’s family now has some measure of financial security, and the city has admitted wrongdoing, Sexton says, “there isn’t any real remedy that is committed to. The remedies that many people think are required really can only be brought about by legislation that would, you know, create a better, more effective way for making sure that prosecutors, in doing their vital jobs for society, don’t abuse their authority.”
