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Comment by hermannj314 | Hacker News Reader

Most people would spend 40 days in jail for $800k. Why wouldn't police collude together to arrest one another? This feels like a free money glitch. I agree without accountability this provides a huge incentive to enrich your friends quite easily off the taxpayer.

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You're making a big mistake by completely failing to account for the inherent (not to mention quite large) uncertainties in this kind of situation.

A priori, it's not "40 days in jail == $800k payday", it's "some unknown number of days in jail and risk of a conviction in exchange for a chance at a payday of unknown value".

Not to mention, the side effects extend beyond jail time. For example, your name gets plastered everywhere too.

That still makes these kinds of settlements feel more like a lottery than fair compensation.

I agree, and that's part of the point. "Free money glitch" does not sound like a valid description of any lottery I've ever heard of.

There's a reason (several, probably) why you don't actually see cases of police arresting each other and then suing to enrich themselves.

This is an extremely paranoid take. Sure, $800k for 40 days is good money, but it also makes the department look terrible, and sets a precident that they have violated rights in the past. It isn't exactly a "free money glitch", since this wasn't just some automatic "$20k/day" judgment, this was damages for violating his freedom of speech.

That’s a calculus for the destitute and mentally ill seeing in a moment someone driving distracted and jumping in front of their car in hopes of getting an insurance payout. Never mind the real possibility of death or significant loss of quality of life.

Only when you have nothing left to lose. And by that time you may be known in your society as mentally ill, and lose in the court because your actions are transparent.

Isn’t Jan 6 a better example? The next Jan 6 will be full of those seeking eligibility into a potential slush fund

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