On April 9, 51-year-old Jonathan Fleming was freed from prison after spending 25 years for a murder he did not commit.

The intriguing part of this story is what went wrong, and how an innocent man could have been wrongly convicted. If law enforcement, jurors, anyone, had sat down and looked more at this case, they could have seen that this man could not have committed the crime in question, but Fleming was still convicted.

According to CNN, Fleming’s alibi for the night of the murders was his family, whom he was with in Florida on a vacation to Disney World. This would obviously free him of suspicion, as the murder took place in Brooklyn, New York. However, withheld phone records, a faulty witness who later recanted her testimony and other shady police work led to an innocent man being held in prison for a quarter of a century. Fleming’s lawyers believe that the evidence was withheld in order to quickly wrap up the case.

As you can imagine, Fleming was wronged by the justice system and intends to seek reparations from multiple organizations that took place in his unjust imprisonment. My question is this: Will simple reparations be enough to make up for the amount of his life that was stolen from him?

In my opinion, nothing will ever make up for time lost for prison inmates that are wrongfully charged with crimes they did not commit. It’s seen all the time all over the country. People are charged with serious crimes, in this case murder, and spend a large portion of their life behind bars. Then they are released back into the world, usually with no way of supporting themselves.

So do I feel that Fleming deserves compensation? Of course I do. I feel that he deserves compensation from the police department and their audaciously horrible handling of his case. I also believe he deserves major compensation from the state for its faulty legal system (namely the prosecutors that knowingly produced a false witness and the judge that refused to accept the recanted testimony of the witness due to “lack of evidence”).

There is no way to make up for 25 years of false imprisonment. Therefore the least that could be done would be to help this man start the rest of his life. This should apply to all people that are falsely imprisoned for extended periods of time, especially when it is obvious that evidence was withheld for the sake of quickly closing a case, like with the Fleming case.

Mistakes will always happen and anyone who expects the legal system to be correct 100 percent of the time is fooling him or herself. I do believe, however, that when mistakes are made or corruption is uncovered, blame needs to be accepted on the state or federal level, and that they should have to atone for the mistakes that they made.

Fleming is a free man now and can spend the remainder of his life with his family. I’m sure, however, that he will never forget the terrible times he had to face in prison, especially knowing he was an innocent man.