A Question of Innocence
Benjamin Franklin
once said, “That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than
that one innocent Person should suffer...” Sadly, that is no
longer how the American justice system operates. There is a popular
image of law enforcement in American culture today, of the brave
district attorney fighting for the truth, whatever the truth really
is. This comes with an implicit assumption held by the majority of
the population that the legal system is heavily tilted in favor of
the defendant. So, anyone convicted must have been very guilty.
Innocent people have nothing to fear.
A few people have
raised questions about Farrah’s innocence and why she plead guilty
to any charges if she did nothing wrong. The short answer is the
prosecution forced her into choosing between the very real chance of
being wrongly convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of her life
in prison, or pleading guilty to the least serious crime she was
charged with. Juries are very unpredictable, moral outrage is
sometimes enough if the evidence provides any doubt.
All the prosecution
was required to do was add charge after charge until the risk of
going to trial were so high compared to the offered bargain of
probation was impossible to reject. Not only did the prosecution act
legally, they acted in a way that has become perfectly normal. The
complete lack of evidence did not matter. The prosecution is not
required to prove anything during plea negotiations. The prosecution
is not required to present or defend threatened charges in court.
This essay presents
a more detailed look at plea bargaining, and the issues surrounding
it.
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