He should be required to assist the innocent man to get back on his feet, find him a job, house him and set him up for success for what life he has left. If the innocent was close to enough to retirement that he wouldn't be able to retire, he should be required to pay into a pension plan that would have seen the man comfortably through retirement and restore everything that this man would have had the opportunity to provide for himself had he been free. Only then would 10 days and 500 hours of community service seem to be even marginally in the ball park of justice.
If that were the law of the land, then a lot of prosecutors would quit and go into private practice.
That said, I'm not saying that this behaviour should not go unpunished, an attorney should be disbarred for this type of behaviour, and serve jail time for a felony (i.e. 1-5 years in State prison) . I think the State and the taxpayers should be made to pay the tab like a previous poster said because in my opinion, they are just as guilty as the prosecutor for setting up the environment in which this was allowed to happen.
> If that were the law of the land, then a lot of prosecutors would quit and go into private practice.
That's an interesting situation. If a lot of prosecutors quit, then there's less bandwidth to prosecute, resulting in less demand for (I presume) defense lawyers.
No, it's just that attorneys won't take such a risk if the penalties are too harsh. Also, the State and the electorate are just as complicit as the prosecutors what it comes to sending innocent people to prison, and they should be punished as well (Having to pay for restoring the person's life in the free world after 10's of years in prison.)
Americans are bloodthirsty: lock 'em up and throw away the key. When the elected district attorneys have pictures of handcuffs and leg irons on their election posters, what does that tell you? (Said election poster seen in Fresno County, California).
It should be a matter of formality that they do pursue every item of required compensation from the lawyer/judge. If it became more of a fear to withhold or manipulate the evidence or the charges/plea to prevent prosecutors gaming the system (which is exactly what this is), then prosecutors would be reasonably held to higher moral standards - for fear of not only losing their jobs/licence, but also having done to them what they're unfairly threatening those that are being charged.
