[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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 11 2017, @10:22PM
Why does that only apply to police? Ordinary people have to deal with our abusive legal system all the time. I don't see why it would be so bad to prosecute cops for violating people's constitutional rights, killing people unjustly, or just assaulting people for no justifiable reason; it's the same system that everyone else has to deal with.