Wrongly jailed man sues Detroit cops for $125M

[NoiseTank13]

You never get what you sue for initially.

That high amount is done so the courts can whittle it down to something that seems more palatable.

I'd say he'd get about several hundred thousand, considering Detroit.

There's no price tag on 25 years stuck in prison for no damn good reason, but it'll go a ways to take your mind off it.

[Narwal]

I was a juror in a trial a few years ago. The plaintiffs lawyer brought up past cases to help us understand how to calculate a value to award, should we find for the plaintiff. The amount of money awarded is not not just intended to be that of value for the plaintiff, it's intended to be a deterrent to the defendant such that they won't perform the action again. In this case, $125M may be an arbitrary value the plaintiff is asking for, including value of life, emotional hardship, etc. However, what a jury would do is also look at the bank sheets of the defendant in this case... and then award a sum of money that puts a dent into their budget. In specific examples, the lawyer showed us cases where a plaintiff asked for say $300,000 for hospital bills and emotional distress caused by an insurance company not paying out for an accident. The jury actually awarded millions of dollars, as they saw that an award of what was being asked taken with the win rate of the insurance company in court would mathematically equate out to the insurance company wanting to just go to court more often than paying out what it should. The lawyer pulled out spread sheets showing how much revenue the insurance company was making per second, per minute, per hour, per day... The lawyer then said... what do you think is an appropriate amount of time the company should think about this? How about a minute? How about an hour? Maybe a day? A week? He then told us to take the amount of time we thought they should think about it and get a value of that time based on the previous calculations being shown. It was a clever technique, because technically the lawyer can't tell the jury how much to award, at least that's how I remember him saying it... so this was a clever technique to get the jury thinking big numbers.

[Caolela]

the reason 125m is absurd is cause of the amount of people it would take to pay that sum back. sorry but detroit doesnt have the money. what do you purpose? people from CA pay it? wtf... yeah the whole city should suffer service shortages (more than they already do) so we can monetary fix a mistake one officer made. and what happens when others are found out? sorry once again DETROIT does not have the money. maybe detroit can set up a go fund me page for the guy explaining what they did and how they want to help but fucking cant.

How about Detroit and the state of Michigan charge the big corporations like the car makers the tax rates they should rightly be paying, instead of giving them "tax incentives" and "tax breaks" - the kind working people don't get?

It's the same across then country - if these local gov'ts (and the Fed as well) are complaining that there's no money, they have only themselves to blame.

Too fucking bad if Detroit gets hit with a stiff court judgment. That's their problem to come up with the money and no one should have any sympathy for that PD or the city officials.

If you or I were given a big fine or had to pay out a judgment and didn't have the money, the court would say too fucking bad, pay up or else. It should be no different for the gov't or their agencies.

- - - Updated - - -

The amount of money awarded is not not just intended to be that of value for the plaintiff, it's intended to be a deterrent to the defendant such that they won't perform the action again.

I said that earlier in the thread.

[cubby]

And?

If you negligently kill someone, the wrongful death lawsuit against you will probably get a couple hundred thousand to a few million dollars if they are lucky...

Are you arguing being wrongfully imprisoned is not only worse than death, it is tens of times worse than death and deserving of compensation commensurate with that?

Your basis of the results of a wrong-ful death suit are incorrect - so your argument isn't valid. Wrongful death suits usually surpass $1MM, and that's before anything negligent is factored in.

For this case, the officers intentionally stole 25 years of his life, and put him in hell as well. I would say that is worth 10's of millions at least.

But isn't this the case we saw awhile ago, on these forums, being discussed. This rings a bell somewhere in the back of my addled brain.

[oxymoronic]

More money than Trump has? Lmao, not even close. This would be about 3.5% of Trump's wealth. And hopefully the money comes out of the welfare that disproportionately goes to red states, not "young liberals" (as if I were one).

never said 125m is more than trump has, im saying sure he deserves more money than trump has BUT lets be realistic... WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR THIS? If found guilty only the police officers guilty should pay, the citizens of detroit did nothing wrong.

[Shamburger]

If a few "absurd" lawsuits goes through, maybe it will deter people being framed in the future.

deter who? nothing is going to happen to the cops...

[Moadar]

You never get what you sue for initially.

That high amount is done so the courts can whittle it down to something that seems more palatable.

I'd say he'd get about several hundred thousand, considering Detroit.

There's no price tag on 25 years stuck in prison for no damn good reason, but it'll go a ways to take your mind off it.

He deserves more than several hundred thousand. Far more.

[dvaz]

So its fair to say that, he literally dindu nuffin?

[Xenyatta]

This spring I was in a film with Jeffery Wright that filmed in a penitentiary. I had to go through all this clearance and stuff and I had to film off a real prisoner. So we were sitting around talking and I "implied" I was curious what he did to get in there. He was happy to share his story as a lot of the prisoners did. He told me he was innocent and he says, "Now I know you're gunna think, 'everyone says that.'"

"The person who did the crime, held up a convenience store, someone gave the police dropped my name and description and they dragged me out of my home and down to the jail. I had no idea what was going on. I questioned how any of this was even legal. So during my trial they showed video footage of the perp and the guy was about 4" taller than me, built like a brick shithouse and was VERY dark skinned. Does that sound like me?" This guy was about 5'10", light skinned black man with a medium build. "My lawyers questioned how this man could be mistaken for me as we looked NOTHING alike. An eye witness said I did it and that was it. It was over. I lost and had to spend 10 years in here. I fought back in appeals twice and lost. I figure god gave me a reason to be here right? Eventually my lawyer came to me and told me there was no way in hell they were letting me out because it was cheaper to leave me in there to rot than it was to let me out and have to pay restitution fees for wrongful imprisonment. So now who's going to hire me? So how's that acting thing going? How do I get involved? That's about all I'll be able to find for work after all this. The sad part is...about 10% of the people in here who claim they're innocent really are innocent and fall in the same financial cover up as I fell in, their families will spend everything they have trying to get them out and nothing will get them free."

I legit felt bad for this man and gave him a hug when it was all over. I wish I had a way to help him but it sucks to know shit like this goes on and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it happened more elsewhere.