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from the things-are-not-always-as-they-appear dept.
[IANAL]
In the US, courts assess guilt or innocence before a conviction, then after that the appellate courts focus solely on fairness. The Atlantic has an exposé on some people who are wrongly convicted are pressured to accept Alford Plea Deals in lieu of exonerations — that more or less means to plead guilty for a verbal guarantee from the courts to both speed things up and give a much lighter or minimal sentence. But how many do this is not known: this situation is not tracked there are no formal statistics. However, in Baltimore City and County alone, there were at least 10 cases in the last 19 years in which defendants with viable innocence claims ended up signing Alford pleas. These can translate to the occasional innocent person being stigmatized, unable to sue the state, and that no one re-investigates the crime meaning that the real perpetrator is never brought to justice.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 11 2017, @12:01PM (2 children)
One thing you need to understand about traffic tickets is, they are considered an administrative affair, as opposed to a criminal problem. A traffic ticket or twenty doesn't turn you into a convict. The government isn't held to the same standards as they are held to in a criminal case. You don't have the same guarantees of due process, a trial by jury, and appeals with traffic tickets that you would have for theft, kidnapping, extortion, or whatever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 11 2017, @12:05PM
... the right to a trial by jury; that is because there is no jail time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @12:43AM
... except that ALL matters involving $20 or more REQUIRE the option to present the case before a jury. [wikipedia.org]
Like 99% of everything government does in the USA, traffic court is criminally illegal.