Not just scott free, but they might be getting a million dollars each from tax payers due to that asinine "settlement" from Trump suing the government.
It's nearly impossible to get paid for malicious prosecution by the federal government. Read up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Amendment_(1997)
>A 2010 investigation by USA Today "found the law has left innocent people... coping not only with ruined careers and reputations but with heavy legal costs. And it hasn't stopped federal prosecutors from committing misconduct or pursuing legally questionable cases."[5] The investigation "documented 201 cases in the years since the law's passage in which federal judges found that Justice Department prosecutors violated laws or ethics rules. Although those represent a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of federal criminal cases filed each year, the problems were so grave that judges dismissed indictments, reversed convictions or rebuked prosecutors for misconduct. Still, USA Today found only 13 cases in which the government paid anything toward defendants' legal bills. Most people never seek compensation. Most who do end up emptyhanded."[5]
The case in OP would never have settled if it was against the federal government rather than a state. Also, the feds cap the amount paid for wrongful imprisonment at $50k/year, by statute.
We need a way to make the federal government pay out for malicious prosecution cases, just as OP got paid.
See e.g. Douglass Mackey. He posted some misleading memes on Twitter about the election, falsely claiming that people could vote by text, and got arrested and found guilty at trial until eventually the 2nd circuit said that what he did wasn't a crime. Should he be compensated? Should the prosecutor and judge in his case face their own criminal prosecutions?
We'll see. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-...
> See e.g. Douglass Mackey. He posted some misleading memes on Twitter about the election, falsely claiming that people could vote by text, and got arrested and found guilty at trial until eventually the 2nd circuit said that what he did wasn't a crime. Should he be compensated? Should the prosecutor and judge in his case face their own criminal prosecutions?
"falsely claiming" is a pretty big distinction between these cases, yes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglass_Mackey says he got off, in part, because no one provably fell for his trick, not that the behavior was legal.
Of course any two cases are going to be different, and the guy posting memes on your side is going to be more sympathetic to you than the guy posting memes that you don't like.
That's part of my point. If you create a criminal statute that applies to OP, someone is going to try applying it in a case like Mackey's. If you don't think it should be applied in Mackey's case, how would you word it to cover just the cases you like and not those you don't?
> That meme — which Larry didn’t create or alter...
> Weems admitted in a later interview that he knew at the time of the arrest that Larry’s Facebook post was a pre-existing meme that referred to an actual shooting that took place in a different state, over 500 miles away…
He didn't create it, the meme was accurate, and the cops knew that. Every bit of the conduct they attempted to punish was clearly legal, and they knew it.
The opinion you reference is at https://ww3.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/OPN/23-7577_opn.pdf.
"cannot alone establish Mackey’s knowing agreement" clearly indicates that things would have been different if they could have established that conduct.
Anyway I don't see how you'd word a law that only applies to the cases you like and not the ones you don't.
Also, other people will like different cases than you, including the judge and jury in whatever case gets brought based on the statute you're proposing.
Terms like "willful" and "intent" are all over our laws and would work just fine here. Assessing that is why we have juries.
This comment has too much snark, but anybody who says the Trump administration won't do something because it's illegal/against norms __hasn't been paying attention__
I'm saying that for decades, people who were maliciously prosecuted by the federal government had effectively no recourse.
It's good to change that, and I'm hopeful that the new fund does some of that. I would prefer to change the system to vastly reduce the threshold for finding the federal government liable in such cases.
> Kathleen Williams, the judge handling the lawsuit, dismissed the case on Monday and, in her filing, admonished the government agencies, notably the Justice Department, for failing to be transparent about the settlement.
> She said no agency "submitted any settlement documents nor filed any documents ensuring that settlement was appropriate where there was an outstanding question as to whether an actual case or controversy existed."
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/19/g-s1-122938/irs-trump-settlem...