SoylentNews

canopic jug [soylentnews.org] writes:

In the US courts assess guilt or innocence before a conviction, then after that the appellate courts focus solely on fairness. Some wrongly convicted are pressured to accept Alford Plea Deals in lieu of exonerations [theatlantic.com], 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 since 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 [cornell.edu]. These can translate to the occasional innocent person being stigmatized, unable to sue the state department, and that no one re-investigates the crime meaning that the real suspect is never brought to justice.

As politicians turn their eyes to target the tech community increasingly there have been a growing number of cases where prosecutors attempt to force general plea bargains [cornell.edu] by front loading an excessive number of charges in hopes that the defended won't have resources to fight them all.

Original Submission