A task force that includes prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys and academics cited "substantial evidence" that innocent people are coerced into guilty pleas because of the power prosecutors hold over them, including the prospect of decades-long mandatory minimum sentences.
I wonder if most of the time the prosecutor knows the defendant is innocent, but will continue knowing the power they can have in the room.
Pleas can allow police and government misconduct to go unchecked, because mistakes and misbehavior often only emerge after defense attorneys gain access to witness interviews and other materials, with which they can test the strength of a government case before trial.
This goes to show the power people in government can hold and how easily they get away with things.
Overhauling the justice system will be no easy task — since it could require changes to laws and ethics rules in many U.S. states.
I think the change is a good idea but how would they go about it with so many people who would be against it?
The report also presses prosecutors and judges not to demand or accept plea deals where defendants waive essential legal rights, such as the right to appeal and receive exculpatory information; and the right to make future claims for release for reasons of terminal illness.
Again just shows how innocent people confess to crimes they never committed by agreeing to waive some of their rights.
"Trials have become rare legal artifacts in most U.S. jurisdictions, and even nonexistent in others,"
Why is it becoming harder for some people to get trials? Are the cases not good enough or could the prosecutor have a say in if a trial is necessary?
Dana Rachlin, executive director of We Build the Block, a Brooklyn-based public safety organization that helps run the alliance, bought Alicia some Chinese food to calm her. As she ate her meal, Rachlin called the city’s mental health hotline. She waited while on hold for 10 minutes before someone told her it would be 24 hours before a team could come, and that she could call the police. Rachlin rolled her eyes and hung up. It was getting colder. Rachlin sat on the bench at the bus stop and Alicia sat next to her, put her head on her shoulder and fell asleep. Finally, Rachlin and Almond and an executive from a social services group drove Alicia to an intake center for a shelter. She could not get a bed until Monday, but she could stay at the center through the weekend.
This is a great example of what can happen if different professionals responded to more situations like these instead of police. The police would most likely have just taken her into jail for public intoxication, but luckily got the right help and support she needed.
Almond, who runs Brownsville In Violence Out, said Anderson realized that sometimes all that is needed to keep the peace is a person with credibility — not necessarily a badge — telling someone: “‘Get out of here. You’re bugging.’”
I completely agree with this statement. This reminds me of a camera footage video I watched where a man tries breaking into a house, but the owner comes out with a gun ready to shoot the thief. Instead of shooting the thief and not threatening to call the cops he mentions to the thief that he knows what its like to be in his shoes and asks him to enter his house to talk. Eventually the owner lowered his weapon and had a civil conversation in his house where the thief apologized and thanked him for the talk and chance to walk away unharmed. Sometimes you really do just need someone with credibilty.
Residents had complained that officers had become aggressive, grabbing men off the street to arrest them for minor offenses. The neighborhood was reeling from the 2019 shooting of Kwesi Ashun, a T-shirt vendor with paranoid schizophrenia, killed as he swung at an officer with a chair at a nail salon.
Like I mentioned in my last annotation police are not good at handling mental health situations like the one mentioned here. Since he was schizophrenic and violent behavior can be common amongst schizophrenia I do think the situation could have been handled differently by another professional likely resulting in a deathless scenario.
Several times a year, workers from Brownsville In Violence Out stand sentry on two blocks for five days. Police channel all 911 calls from that area to the civilians. Unless there is a major incident or a victim demands an arrest, officers, always in plainclothes, shadow the workers.
I believe this is a great way to show some officers how to better handle calls involving homeless or mental issues since they are mostly trained on how to deal with intense and violent situations.