That's what I call irony
On my lunch hour today I was listening to an interview with the director of a documentary about the lives of several men who were released from prison after new evidence proved them innocent of the crimes of which they were convicted. It was fascinating; but the most amazing thing was finding out that these innocent people who have had decades of their lives stolen from them by our justice system get nothing in compensation for their pain and suffering. They cannot successfully sue the state unless they can prove that there was actual negligence or wrongdoing -- and most of the time they landed in jail only because some schmuck wasn't really doing their job, but there was no actual mistake. Just laziness. I guess I assumed that upon their release they turned around and sued the pants off the state. That, sadly, is not the case.
And then, just to drive home the point, I got back to the office (I work for a healthcare system) and on my desk was an article about the huge malpractice judgements being awarded by juries these days. We're talking about billions of dollars awarded in pain and suffering alone. Not that I think a doctor should be able to screw up and just go "oops", but how can the same legal system produce two such disparate results? How can the system work so well for one innocent victim and not at all for another?
7:44:16 PM 
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