Pleading guilty to avoid pre-trial detention
2013-05-21 18:05:45.92553+02 by Dan Lyke 0 comments
Village Voice: Bail is Busted: How Jail Really Works. More on the asymmetry of the justice system, and how trial is for people who can both afford to and manage to get there:
But the really shocking revelation of the Freedom Fund experiment was this: More than half of the fund's clients eventually saw their cases either completely dismissed or knocked down to some noncriminal disposition. Not a single one ever went back to jail on the charges for which they were bailed out.
Without access to a bail fund, defendants in similar positions pleaded guilty to criminal charges 95 percent of the time. The fund's numbers made wincingly clear what everyone had already vaguely known: The current bail system has the direct effect of slapping criminal convictions on poor people who would otherwise win their cases.