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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: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 11 2017, @05:16PM
"Is that your only encounter with the law?"
LOL, certainly not. That was only the worst trouble that I've ever been in, personally. Most of my encounters with police have involved traffic citations. Roughly 1/3 of those citations were accurate and just - the other 2/3 were made up out of thin air, and out-of-state driver's license.
I've met bad cops, good cops, and a couple of great guys wearing the uniform. Also, one evil SOB. The stories of the great cops, and the evil SOB would take pages to write out, so I'll just leave it there.
Just call me a scofflaw when it comes to traffic laws. I've talked to a lot of policemen in my lifetime. My EMT training has led me to stop a lot of times, as well, so not every encounter with the police has been about my driving.
Life can be interesting!