Thursday, 5. December 2013
Topic: DRUGS - on December 5, 2013 at 5:24:00 PM CET
Human Rights Watch on Coerced Guilty Pleas in US Drug Cases
An Offer You Can’t Refuse
How US Federal Prosecutors Force Drug Defendants to Plead Guilty
The 126-page report details how prosecutors throughout the United States extract guilty pleas from federal drug defendants by charging or threatening to charge them with offenses carrying harsh mandatory sentences and by seeking additional mandatory increases to those sentences. Prosecutors offer defendants a much lower sentence in exchange for pleading guilty. Since drug defendants rarely prevail at trial, it is not surprising that 97 percent of them decide to plead guilty.
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