A man we'll call Ron Doe was convicted for a murder he did not commit when he was 34 and sentenced to hard time.

Fifteen years after Doe's conviction, his defense attorneys discovered notes from the prosecution that indicated that a chief witness in the case had made contradictory statements that helped convict him. Five years later, after a brutal court battle, Doe was released. He promptly turned around and launched a $20 million federal civil-rights lawsuit for wrongful imprisonment.

He settled for $900,000 -- an agreement that guarantees him $50,000 cash and payments that amount to a little more than $3,500 a month for the next 11 years -- compensation that amounts to $45,000 for every year he spent behind bars.

Plaxico Burress is 34. On June 6, 2011, he was released from a protective custody unit of the Oneida Correctional Facility in Rome, N.Y. That's where he had spent two years serving out a sentence for accidentally shooting himself in the thigh with his own illegal handgun in the VIP room of a Manhattan nightclub. And while he was released from the hospital just days later, a jury said his reckless endangerment of others was enough to convict, despite pleas for leniency.

Despite the fact that he had once caught the deciding touchdown pass for the New York Giants in the greatest upset in Super Bowl history a year earlier.

Plax was routinely jeered by inmates, but kept separate from the population save for his three showers a week, three hours of daily recreation and weekend visits. And those visits had to be truly heartbreaking. His wife was pregnant, and he had a 3-year-old son at the time of his conviction. While it may be hard to weep for a guy who collected a $1 million signing bonus weeks after being released by his former employers, you've got to feel for the kid.

My 2-year-old kid wonders where daddy goes when he leaves the house. Wife tells him I'm a "newsman." Works for him. What did Mrs. Burress tell her kid?

I can't speak for Ron Doe's incarceration, but I'm guessing it wasn't a cakewalk. I think it's safe to say that since he was wrongfully convicted, the compensation probably won't make up for the distress and two decades shorn off of his life.

As for Plax? He was guilty as charged, and he did his time. And a little more than a month later, he received a one-year contract from the New York Jets worth more than $3 million. That translates into $187,500 to play toss-and-catch for 16 football games this season.

Hard time ... right, Plax?