What Happens When You're Improperly Jailed?

This question comes to me once in a while. I wonder how society would take care of me if I was wrongly accused and jailed. What if, in spite of knowing that the judgement was wrong, the court goes ahead and either refuses to let me go (because it would set a precedent that would force the court to re-try thousands of cases), still holds me liable when found not guilty (money owed to the state), or interprets the law so dishonestly as to fly in the face of common sense (several Supreme Court decisions). What would society do?

Nothing.

Of course because the plight of one man is infinitesimal. But that doesn't make it right or just. Suppose I was accused and convicted of a crime and then ten years later I were to be exonerated because DNA evidence proves that I wasn't the criminal. Then what? How will society compensate all that I've lost?

I read this article over at Beyond the Broken Spectrum. Money shot:

A Georgia man spent more than a year behind bars for failing to pay child support for a child that wasn’t his, but he was released after DNA tests showed he wasn’t the father. Frank Hatley, 50, had been jailed since June 2008 for not making payments...

Although Hatley was freed from making future payments after a 2001 hearing, Superior Court Judge Dan Perkins had ordered him to continue making $16,000 in back payments.

 HOLY CRAP!

Let's think about this for a second. An innocent man was deprived of liberty, property, and a period of life based on society's judgement of him. If we as society have the power to deprive our peers of these things, then when we're wrong, we should compensate that person justly. It should also act as a cautionary tale because it could happen to any one of us.

How do we compensate the time lost? Money based on average income? Or the accused potential income based his prior job and adjusted for inflation? Or a lifetime compensation package (house, car, everything) based on the median income of the state?

How do we compensate broken relationships?  Or how do we say, "I'm sorry for the prison lifestyle that was forced upon you and I hope you aren't too mentally or emotionally scarred."

Look, I'm not saying that we shouldn't punish criminals in case we accidentally convict an innocent man. BUT, the cornerstone of our justice system can be condensed into the famous line, "Better ten guilty men go free than to convict one innocent man." And if we find that innocent man, then we need to lavish upon him as much, or more, as we have punished him. We must equal the scales.

If it were found that the prosecution was withholding or tampering evidence, then the prosecution needs to face some harsh penalties.  But aside from that, I think that we, as a society and as the state, need to be generous with the compensations. A conservative might say that that's too bad...tough luck...our imperfect justice system sometimes incarcerates innocent men. I don't know what a liberal would say. I say we need to take care of these broken human beings because we created them accidentally. Currently most states have minimal or non-existant compensation for such cases, but there needs to be more.