Errors of criminal justice system

[Euroepan]

Check out an article about numerous mistakes of the U.S. criminal justice system and how the Bush administration wants to address the problem. G.W.Bush is known for strongly supporting a death penalty but he also realizes that wrongful convictions happen throughout the U.S. It seems that the government has a plan how to fight it:

http://europeancourier.org/home.htm

The title of the article is "USA: Errors of Criminal Justice System"

[Old Corps Gunny]

Interesting article, but it seems to have confused prosecutorial competency with prosecutorial misconduct. The former implies knowledge of law and courtroom procedure; the latter a complete disregard of law and procedure in order to get a conviction. I applaud funds to improve legal defense, but lawyers are supposed to demonstrate their competency to practice law by passing bar exams. Perhaps these exams should be revised.

[AlonzoMourning23]

Tests can't test competency. They can only test knowledge. There's no way to make a written test actually ensure that the people passing are good lawyers.

[BoogyMan]

Tests can't test competency. They can only test knowledge. There's no way to make a written test actually ensure that the people passing are good lawyers.


Good point. Isn't it spelled liar though instead of lawyer? :P

[Athena]

"However the great majority of wrongful convictions occur in connection with the most serious crimes". This line concerns me. It has become the norm to get an easy conviction by having the defendent plead guilty to a lesser charge. The risk of not accepting this deal is too high, so people afraid of this risk, plead guilty just to avoid the risk of long prison sentences. Everyone in the justice system is aware of this and they defend it by saying it is cost effective, and truly just trails for everyone would not be practical. They would take too much time and money.

Another common trail practice is just to prove doubt, and this is done by implementing someone else, even when the defendant and lawyer know the other person didn't do the crime.

It is my opinion, that our criminal justice system has been corrupted by an ammoral focus on technological correctness. It is my opinion that this is one reason a revolution is necessary. In the course of civilizations, such corruptions creep in, until the institutions are so corrupt, the only solution is to destroy the institutions are begin over again.

[Rider]

Athena is certainly right about plea bargaining. It has gotten so out of control that I'm sure many innocent people have accepted prison terms rather than risk more severe punishment.

[Athena]

Athena is certainly right about plea bargaining. It has gotten so out of control that I'm sure many innocent people have accepted prison terms rather than risk more severe punishment.


Are you mocking me?Â*Â*The whole point of plea bargining is avoiding the prison sentence.Â*Â*They are not all innocent people, but there quilt doesn't make the practice any better.

Plea Bargaining- plea bargaining was limited to those rare cases in which prosecutors could unilaterally ... In other words, plea bargaining is arguably another outgrowth of ...
www.truthinjustice.org/bargaining.htm - 10k - Cached - Similar pages

In fact, says Albert Alschuler, a University of Chicago law professor, roughly 90 percent of convictions occur when the defendant waives the right to trial and pleads guilty. And most of those pleas involve a deal that reduces punishment.
According to George Fisher, a former prosecutor now at Stanford Law School: ''The general public tends to regard plea bargaining as too lenient. The defense bar and others of like mind think it too coercive.'' Schulhofer and Alschuler are among the strongest academic critics of the practice, emphasizing the economic motivation behind it. ''Court-appointed defenders are typically paid for only the first 15 or 20 hours' worth of work -- and prosecutors have a strong incentive not to lose,'' Schulhofer says. ''This is a conflict of interest problem.''

The efficiency gained by plea bargains outweighs their evils, proponents say. Some members of the so-called law-and-economics school, like Frank Easterbrook, an appellate judge who lectures at the University of Chicago, also claim that plea bargaining gives defendants more autonomy. Fisher counts himself in the middle. He says that the practice is ''a skulking truce'' but considers it practically unavoidable, if the system is not to grind to a halt, and nowhere near the systemic blight limned by opponents.