Robert DuBoise, sentenced over a 1983 rape and murder he did not commit, says he hopes others in his position now ‘get justice’

Robert DuBoise, sentenced over a 1983 rape and murder he did not commit, says he hopes others in his position now ‘get justice’

A Tampa, Florida, man who has been authorized to receive $14m for spending nearly four decades in prison over a rape and murder which he did not commit says he hopes his case makes it easier for the unjustly convicted to achieve justice before it’s too late for them.

“I’m just grateful,” Robert DuBoise told the New York Times of the compensation that Tampa’s city council voted to pay him to settle a lawsuit over his wrongful conviction. He said he hoped others in his position now “get justice and can move on without having to spend the rest of their life fighting the system that has already wronged them”.

DuBoise was 18 at the time that 19-year-old Barbara Grams was raped and beaten to death as she walked home from her Tampa restaurant job in August 1983. A medical examiner determined that someone had bitten Grams on one of her cheeks, prompting investigators to take bite samples from multiple men, including DuBoise.

    • LufyCZ@lemmy.world
      2458·
      9 months ago

      He didn’t make money, his net worth went up.

      Also, how is that related to this in ANY way

      • spider@lemmy.nz
        391·
        9 months ago

        Zuckerberg made 2,000 times more in one morning for doing basically nothing, vs. what DuBoise made in almost four decades in a settlement for a wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

        It’s pretty easy to grasp if you don’t overthink it.

        • LufyCZ@lemmy.world
          319·
          9 months ago

          He built a successful company, that’s what he did :)

          But still, it doesn’t matter, sucks that it happened to the lad, but comparing him to Zuckerberg doesn’t do absolutely anything for him, it’s completely unrelated to his case.

            • LufyCZ@lemmy.world
              47·
              9 months ago

              Again, it doesn’t do him any favors.

              If you want to push your agenda, that’s fine, but piggybacking off of a ruined life (in quite exceptional circumstances all things considered) doesn’t do absolutely anything.

              What’s the point? Should the guy have gotten more? He can live like a king without a care for the rest of his life. If he has children, those can, too.

              Or is it that Zuckerberg shouldn’t be “allowed” to own his own company, which coincidentally is pretty successful?

              Because if it’s the latter, it’s unrelated to this specific person, you could post it under a cute kitty vid and it’d have the same value.

  • loobkoob@kbin.social
    741·
    9 months ago

    $14m seems far too low:

    • 40 years at $350,000 per year
    • 480 months at $29,170 per month
    • 14,600 days at $960 per day

    Those don’t sound too bad until you get to:

    • 350,400 hours at $40 per hour.

    $40 an hour in exchange for losing most of your life - and the vast majority of your best years - is a fucking disgrace.

    • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
      14·
      9 months ago

      not to mention the need for psychological damage compensation. The guy lived 40 years with people around him, his friends and maybe relatives thinking that he brutally raped and murdered a young girl. I would have gone crazy probably, and die of stomach cancer or sth.

    • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz
      8·
      9 months ago

      I agree he should receive a higher compensation, but have no idea what that should be. I can’t look at it in terms of dollars per hour and think of an appropriate amount worth giving up 40 years of life. If I was in that position I don’t think 1billion would be fair.

    • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
      105·
      9 months ago

      I saw it differently, I was pleasantly surprised to see an amount that high because now he has the remainder of his life, maybe 30 to 40 years, to spend 14 Million USD. He could buy a home and car and still have enough for a modest retirement, if he chooses to.

      If he invests the remainder into VYM then the dividends alone would be more than my annual salary.

        • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
          2·
          9 months ago

          Agreed, but if a person were given a sum of money then that amount would seem about appropriate to me. Minimum 8M depending on legal fees, but preferably closer to 40M if we want him to be extra well off. We cannot undo the past.

    • shugosha@lemmy.world
      2·
      9 months ago

      It should be total FU money. The state should give him free healthcare, free public transportation, free legal services, free public utilities, and free internet.

  • Fenrisulfir@lemmy.ca
    21·
    9 months ago

    Is he actually gonna get it or is there gonna be an appeal where he’s dragged through the courts again for years and only awarded $500k after being forced to pay $10 million in legal fees?

    • boblives@lemmy.world
      20·
      9 months ago

      It’s a settlement, which means the city agreed to pay the $14,000,000 instead of going to trial and risk a verdict of a much higher amount. So no there won’t be any appeals and he should see the money.

    • moistclump@lemmy.world
      13·
      9 months ago

      Not to mention the tax dollars spent to house and feed an innocent man. And the salaries of the lawyers and cops involved to get him there.

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    1828·
    9 months ago

    How the fuck is money gonna fix this?

    All prisons must go. Its inhumane to incarcerate people.

    • iAmTheTot@kbin.social
      356·
      9 months ago

      That’s an interesting take. What do you recommend be done with criminals? Especially violent ones?

        • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
          186·
          9 months ago

          And when people are repeat offenders and enjoy killing people? Then what…

          • AeonFelis@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            Then you lock them together with the people who did lesser crimes and can be rehabilitated to ensure they too will end up more likely to do crimes, maybe even bigger ones, when eventually released.

            • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
              141·
              9 months ago

              It’s a legitimate question, though. There are many people who genuinely enjoy harming others. There really is no “rehabilitation” for someone who is disinterested in modifying their harmful behavior. Segregating those people from society is a safety issue.

              Rehabilitation for other people is excellent, but we still need a solution for those who cannot be rehabilitated.

              • Tremble@sh.itjust.works
                56·
                9 months ago

                Well, considering we don’t actually have any rehabilitation in the United States…… you’re basically arguing that we should continue to trample on the human rights of prisoners because you believe that there are people who can not be rehabilitated.

                • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
                  12·
                  9 months ago

                  I’m not arguing against rehab or prison reform. You are right that we desperately need it. I’m arguing against the total abolishment of some kind of prison system because there are some who simply should not be allowed near the public. Porque no los dos?

              • girlfreddy@lemmy.ca
                27·
                9 months ago

                Please provide your evidence of “many people” who deserve your version of justice.

                • Primarily0617@kbin.social
                  8·
                  9 months ago

                  Please provide your evidence of “many people”

                  even if only one person proved utterly disinterested in rehabilitating themselves, you’d still need some kind of escape hatch built into the system to handle them

                  getting bogged down in specific frequencies is kind of missing the point

                • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
                  61·
                  9 months ago

                  This is just the very first result in a litany of numerous results in a quick internet search for this. It seems there is no shortage of research on this topic available for you to read directly without my potential contamination of it. But, here’s a preview for you. Hope this helps.

                  A 2021 meta-analysis conducted by international scholars from Spain, Bulgaria, Sweden and the UK found a significant portion of the human population to be psychopaths as defined by the PCL-R.

                  The meta-analytical results obtained allow us to estimate the prevalence rate of psychopathy in the general adult population at 4.5%.

                  Regarding the significance of psychopathy among people found guilty of a crime or incarcerated, they mention:

                  the personality and behavior of offenders with a diagnosis of psychopathy are very different from those of other offenders.

                  It’s important to note that I am not espousing a “version of justice” as you put it. My concern is simply with segregating harmful people from potential victims to prevent additional harm.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
          2·
          9 months ago

          Is that effectiveness based on statistical aggregations?

          Because if so, the system’s not adhering to the necessary design constraint of “must handle all possible human behavior”.

        • yggstyle@lemmy.world
          5·
          9 months ago

          So mars will become Australia 2.0

          I wonder if space Australia will have space dingos and space kangaroos…

            • Pantherina@feddit.de
              1·
              9 months ago

              This gives some people moral superiority over others. It means some randos that are also very flawed and, living in a western society, for sure contribute to climate change, the killing of animals and indirectly humans, can say “this person did something bad”.

              You just cant do that. Court is not a place for justice, it is often biased, emotionally and ideologically tinted, and no judge is objective.

              • Primarily0617@kbin.social
                1·
                9 months ago

                if that’s the argument you’re using against prisons, can’t i, a dastardly doer of crimes, simply reject any form of consequence for my actions, since you’re still going about contributing to global warming through your addiction to being alive and existing in society?

          • admiralteal@kbin.social
            2·
            9 months ago

            Don’t worry. It has no magnetosphere. Even in environmentally-enclosed shelters, you’d still see horrific rates of cancer and other such radiation-induced disease rapidly wiping out complex life like humans.

        • Primarily0617@kbin.social
          32·
          9 months ago

          its a long article and i cant read

          what do you do about cases where the victim doesnt want to engage in a dialogue with the offender?

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
            4·
            9 months ago

            If you can’t read, here’s an online article reader you can use. Just select the entire content of the article and paste it as plain text on that site

          • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.netEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            The short answer to your question is that it’s complicated - in the systems where restorative justice has the most potential to change things, it’s still quite a radical approach and there’s a lot to be figured out.

            One way of addressing the problem you raise is that sometimes “surrogate victims” are used - people who have been victims of the same or similar crime. Apparently this has been quite effective in some instances, but ideally usage of this should be limited - one of the ongoing challenges is ensuring that the rehabilitation of offenders doesn’t take precedence over the kind of two way healing that restorative justice is meant for