It didn’t matter that he was innocent. That the waitress whose restaurant he allegedly robbed identified him from a photo lineup, then recanted her testimony on the witness stand. That the prosecution offered to drop the weapons possession charge against the restaurant’s cook if he fingered him as the robber.
All that mattered, it seemed, was that Stephen Schulz had a criminal record, and had refused a plea deal, instead opting to prove his innocence at trial. So for the crime of standing up for himself, Schulz was sentenced to 11 years in prison., “but once you become a suspect, there is a presumption of guilt that attaches, and It’s very difficult to budge.
Medwed believes the most egregious part of this biased system involves “prosecutorial power,” that “because of the plea-bargaining system, and the prosecutor’s decision to charge you with a crime, this means they hold all the cards in the system. And they have so much leverage, and might not be as accountable to the public as one might think. And there is a lack of transparency in the system—prosecutors can be judges and juries. We need more transparency in the way the sausage is made.
prize jury deliberations and verdicts. As Medwed says in his book, “An appellate court’s detachment from the trial doesn’t help much in reconsidering factual findings and judgment calls about the admissibility of evidence.”doesn’t play favorites. It even brings up issues revolving around what might be the most respected aspect of the judicial system, juries and how they reach their verdicts. Despite the general belief that juries tend to, they can be hampered in crucial ways.
The innocence commission idea seems like a particularly good one, if the experience of North Carolina is any guide. The Tar Heel State’s Innocence Inquiry Commission has reviewed over 3,000 cases and produced 15 exonerations since 2006, most notably a pair of cognitively impaired half-brothers who had spent three decades in prison for a rape and murderBut when it comes to the progressive prosecutor movement, two of its foremost proponents have run up against some serious headwinds.
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