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.

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ikeboy 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is another example of the kind of partisan thinking I'm criticizing.

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?

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ceejayoz 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It's nearly impossible to get paid for malicious prosecution by the federal government.

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.

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ikeboy 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I've read the second circuit opinion and saying that it was legal is a fair takeaway. They didn't reach the 1st amendment grounds though because they didn't need to once determining that he didn't conspire as required (technically, they didn't prove he conspired.)

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?

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ceejayoz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That doesn't seem so hard. Per this article:

> 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.

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ikeboy 3 hours ago | parent [-]

When an appeals court rules on one issue that's enough to decide the case, they often don't rule on the remaining issues.

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.

	▲	ceejayoz 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> 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. Terms like "willful" and "intent" are all over our laws and would work just fine here. Assessing that is why we have juries.

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malfist 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm sure that the DOJ, headed by Trump's personal attorney, will get right on the Trump administration to prevent them from violating the Hyde amendment.

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__

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ikeboy 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That's not at all what I said.

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.

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malfist 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Are you asserting that the folks who participated in a literal coup attempt were maliciously prosecuted by the federal government? Because that sounds like the position you're arguing from.

	▲	ikeboy 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If you include the guy who was arrested for posting memes as participating in a coup, sure. "But the memes were misleading" (as someone else in this thread was arguing) I don't care.

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amanaplanacanal 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Was there an actual judge in this case? If so, that judge should never have approved this settlement. Of all the horrifying things this administration has done, this one is near the top of the list.

	▲	QuercusMax 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The judge in the case in fact put out a statement that there WAS no settlement. > 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...