"A marked uptick in the number of
exonerations coming out of Houston, Texas, has refocused attention on the role
guilty pleas play in generating wrongful convictions, notes Eric Benson in a
recent article published by the social action platform Takepart.com. “Plea bargaining can coerce
innocent people into accepting a sentence,” Scott Henson, executive director of
the Innocence
Project of Texas, told Benson, pointing out the added risks of a
systemic bias toward getting rapid guilty pleas. “These cases highlight the
pressures on the front end for people to plead guilty and just to put it behind
them.” According to an article by the National Registry of Exonerations, some 95% of
felony convictions in the United States are obtained by guilty pleas, yet only
15 percent of people who have been exonerated for crimes for which they didn’t
commit entered guilty pleas. According to the article, that’s not because
most people who plead guilty are innocent but because it is extremely difficult
for innocent people who plead guilty to challenge their convictions. The recent Houston exonerations help to
illustrate the scope of the problem. Since early 2014, 71 people were
exonerated who plead guilty to drug possession in Harris County, Texas
(Houston). In these cases, people plead guilty based on the results of
field tests which are so imprecise that they have misidentified “Jolly
Ranchers, breath mints, oregano and even air as illegal drugs,” writes Benson.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, most of these people
agreed to plead guilty “because they faced months in jail before trial, and
years more if convicted.” They were exonerated because the alleged drugs were
submitted to testing after conviction and were found not to be controlled
substances.........These cases from a single jurisdiction
make up 67% of all guilty plea exonerations involving drug cases. While it is
impossible to know how many people are pleading guilty to drug cases for which
they are innocent, it is almost certain that this is happening in other
jurisdictions around the country. It’s also important to note that there is no
way to know which jurisdictions are testing the drugs after a guilty plea as
they did in Houston. Read the full article on guilty pleas here."
Monday, November 30, 2015
Bulletin: Innocence Project - prompted by, a marked uptick in the number of exonerations coming out of Houston, Texas - asks why are people pleading guilty to crimes they didn’t commit? "The recent Houston exonerations help to illustrate the scope of the problem. Since early 2014, 71 people were exonerated who plead guilty to drug possession in Harris County, Texas (Houston). In these cases, people plead guilty based on the results of field tests which are so imprecise that they have misidentified “Jolly Ranchers, breath mints, oregano and even air as illegal drugs,” writes Benson. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, most of these people agreed to plead guilty “because they faced months in jail before trial, and years more if convicted.” They were exonerated because the alleged drugs were submitted to testing after conviction and were found not to be controlled substances. (Must Read. HL);
