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.
$14m seems far too low:
Those don’t sound too bad until you get to:
$40 an hour in exchange for losing most of your life - and the vast majority of your best years - is a fucking disgrace.
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.
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.
-8 to 9 hours per day for sleep then.
If you cannot go home for you ‘job’ then they best be paying you.
This man didn’t go home for 40 years straight.
In his dreams he is free
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.