Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

A person is arrested and held in jail rather than have bail paid. Charges are eventually dropped and I am told a person is owed compensation for each day held in custody. How does the person in question file to be compensated by the state or county if the situation is a year old?


Asked on 9/23/09, 9:00 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Edward Hoffman Law Offices of Edward A. Hoffman

The person you describe would only be entitled to compensation if the police and/or prosecutors had no reason to believe he was guilty. To prove this he will have to do a lot more than show that the charges were dropped.

It is common for prosecutors to realize that someone who has been arrested is probably not guilty; when that happens they drop the charges and have him released. It is also common for prosecutors to dismiss charges against people they believe are guilty; they sometimes do this where the evidence is weak, or when they decide to allocate their resources to other cases. When this happens the defendant is not entitled to compensation.

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Answered on 9/23/09, 9:21 pm


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