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posted by martyb on Monday September 11 2017, @10:57AM   Printer-friendly
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.


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  • (Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Tuesday September 12 2017, @04:28AM

    by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Tuesday September 12 2017, @04:28AM (#566544) Journal

    Of course check fraud isn't strict liability! Strict liability is only for very petty offenses, like traffic tickets and ... uh ... statutory rape ...

    Yeah okay we need some legal reform to make it so strict liability is actually only for very petty offenses, like it's supposed to be, but it's not so bad it's gotten to check fraud yet.

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