A lot of people do not know about this issue but there have been a lot of cases of prosecutors going awry and getting people who did not break the law sent to prison. The judges, in many cases, don't want to take the effort to closely examine things and just give their rubber stamp of approval to the prosecutor.
for those of you who don't have the attention span to watch that whole video, here's a 6 minute overview by John Stossel:
Our foolish drug prohibition is a very large factor in the collapse of our criminal justice system, as illustrated by the criminal malfeasance of so many prosecutors and judges. Way back in the fall of 1998 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a lengthy analysis called "Win At All Costs" by their writer Bill Moushey. Hopefully this link will work. http://www.usa-the-republic.com/items of interest/Win_At_All_Cost/Win_at_all_costs.htm
The system worked the appeals overturned convictions as for Anderson ,well, they had defense lawyers if they couldn't win in court the first time they did win in the end on appeals.
The system in place indeed does not work if prosecutors are allowed to abuse their authority, and face no meaningful consequences for such actions. If the united states justice system did indeed work, such actions would result in permanent disbarment and criminal prosecution for the attorney in question.
They could be sitting in prison for a while until that appeal works its way through. Appeals typically take 14 to 18 months in the current system. (That might be on top of 12 to 16 months they have already been in prison awaiting the original trial) One of the dirty strategies these disreputable prosecutors use is using their influence to get bail denied, or getting the judge to set the bail amount so high the defendant cannot afford it. There's even been a few cases where a prosecutor succeeded in getting a wealthy defendant's assets all frozen up, making it virtually impossible to afford a lawyer or pay for bail. Gives the prosecutor a lot of leverage to push them into a plea bargain.
Actually, Black citizens know this form of White-racism all too well, since 1863. Ferguson MO was the most recent collosal, episode, when luckily Obama/Holder wound up shutting down racism's Prosecutor's office plus Holder gutted the racist Ferguson police dept.
It seems to me injustice is injustice, whether it's motivated by racism, another type of bias, or some other motive. Sadly it seems people only get outraged about this type of injustice when it involves perceived racism. If you'll remember in that other thread when I was talking about "civil rights", this was the type of thing I was talking about.
Here is how it works in the real world. The fact is that prosecutors do not give a damn about the guilt or innocence of anyone when a case is brought before them, all they care about is their conviction rate. They are elected officials who's political future depends on their conviction rate. If you are unfortunate enough to be an innocent person arrested for a crime you did not commit and your case goes beyond a certain point, you are screwed unless you can afford a really good attorney. The game goes like this. You will be offered a deal to plead guilty to a lesser charge. If you are adamant you are innocent and refuse to plead guilty, the DA will "pile on" charges and tell you that statistically people charged with multiple charges are almost always convicted on at least one given the prejudice of jury's. Your attorney will advise you to plead to the lesser charge, and not try to fight the system. The fact is all of our elected officials are corrupt, and only concerned with their careers. Of course, if you are rich and make big campaign contributions to your local DA, you can get away with anything. We have the best system money can buy.
related story: New Jersey court denies bail because man had empty magazines The prosecutor was able to argue that bail should be denied. The man's only alleged crime was trying to enter into an unauthorized area of a public bridge (trespassing) with a fake ID, and they found some empty magazines for a gun in the man's home. The prosecutor was able to insinuate that that could show the man might be a threat.
