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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 linuxrocks123 on Tuesday September 12 2017, @04:38AM
I agree that incentives matter, but not to the extent you imply. Some people do what they think is right, and damn the incentives or consequences. They're rare, but they're probably more rare because most people try to avoid situations where they have to choose between what's right and what's expected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Serpico [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden [wikipedia.org]
If I were forced to be a police officer in a horribly corrupt district, and I couldn't just quit, I can honestly say I'd end up a whistleblower, and possibly a dead one. But I'd really rather just not put myself in that situation.