I can't fathom Missouri getting away with imprisoning someone for 22 years and not paying him any compensation. An entire life down the drain due to incompetence.
> Watson was correct all along: He was a U.S. citizen. After he was released, he filed a complaint. Last year, a district judge in New York awarded him $82,500 in damages, citing "regrettable failures of the government."
> On Monday, an appeals court ruled that Watson, now 32, is not eligible for any of that money — because while his case is "disturbing," the statute of limitations actually expired while he was still in ICE custody without a lawyer.
We have a bizarre system.
> The two-year statute of limitations on his "false imprisonment" started ticking when Watson first went before a judge, the majority said. That meant it expired while he was still in ICE custody, without a lawyer.
A perfect example of bureaucracy and "the rules" used for evil.
It would be cheaper for everyone to just keep you unfairly.
Elected judges and prosecutors may lose elections when the electorate hears they shell out huge compensations, especially to people the electorate is not really convinced are innocent (because unlike the judges, who were at the trial obviously, the electorate learned only a tiny fraction of information about a case from more or less reliable media sources at best, and outright rumors and gossip at worst).
Appointed judges are still appointed by somebody, and that somebody is a (group of) politician(s). These politicians have the same issues as the elected judges and prosecutors, and may avoid this (or even retaliate) by not appointing judges (to higher circuits) that are perceived to be risky in this regard, effectively killing the careers of these judges. So if you want to become an appointed judge, you still better pay close attention to the political scene and play ball.
This is where separation of powers is important. A judiciary shouldn't care that the executive branch is on the hook for compensation.
If they kept someone 2.2 years and then didn't compensate you could argue incentives to keep but after a certain amount of years it seems like there isn't any difference between what they actually are doing and how they would behave with incentive not to let you go.
Aside from that there could be ways to structure compensations, for example a scheme where you get less compensation per year for short time, more compensation per year for longer time might make them want to let you go and cut their losses once they determine you were innocent.
Wisconsin's limit is $5k/year and $25k/total, which comes out to about 2% of the Federal hourly minimum wage in OP's case.
You can sue, but that risks the result being $0.