Sometimes innocent people are wrongfully convicted of serious crimes. Sometimes they're released from prison after many years. How much money do they deserve?

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Anthony Ortiz and Danny Colon, who each spent about 17 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of a double murder ("key witnesses were found to have implicated the pair after accepting deals from prosecutors"), have reached a settlement with the city. Ortiz is reportedly getting $6.5 million, and Colon is getting $2.5 million. For context, the Journal also cites the case of Jabbar Collins, another man who spent 16 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder, who received $10 million from the city and an additional $3 million from the state.

Are these figures fair (besides the fact that Danny Colon should perhaps get a better lawyer)? It depends on how you value freedom. A little rough math shows that if Anthony Ortiz spent 17 years, or 6,205 days, in prison, he's getting a wee bit more than $1,000 per day of his incarceration. At $10 million for 16 years, the city paid Jabbar Collins a little more than $1,700 per day.

An immediate reaction might be that $1,700 per day seems like an exorbitant amount. It's highly unlikely that someone would earn that much money on their own in the free world. But consider what the payment is really for: freedom. It is not unfair to put a somewhat exorbitant price on one's on freedom, particularly if it has been surrendered against your will. This is not a case in which two parties entered into a contract based upon mutual consent; this is a case in which a miscarriage of justice caused someone to be deprived of freedom for many years. Everything short of these men's very lives was taken from them unjustly. Payment should be high. And the steeper the penalty to the government, the higher the incentive to avoid putting people in jail unjustly.

A million dollars per year works out to around $2,700 a day. That seems about right. It's a high price. And it should be.

[Photo: AP]