The plea of innocence : restoring truth to the American justice system / Tim Bakken.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bakken, Tim, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Criminal procedure--United States.

Criminal procedure.

Law reform--United States.

Law reform.

Judicial error--United States--Prevention.

Judicial error.

Evidence, Criminal--United States.

Evidence, Criminal.

Plea bargaining--United States.

Plea bargaining.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2022]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

"We rely on the adversarial legal system to hold offenders accountable, ensure everyone is playing by the same rules, and keep our streets safe. Unfortunately, a grave condition lingers under the surface: at all times the imprisonment of possibly tens of thousands of innocent people. The Plea of Innocence offers a fundamental reform of the adversarial system: plausibly innocent people may now plead innocent and require the government to search for exonerating facts; in return, they will be required to waive their right to remain silent, speak to government agents, and participate in a search for truth. While almost all the participants within the system hope that only guilty people will be convicted, the unfortunate reality is that innocent people are convicted and imprisoned at an alarming rate. With the privatization of defense institutions, accused innocent people are themselves responsible for finding the facts that could exonerate them. Though the poor are represented by public defenders--in fact, almost no one who is charged with a crime has enough money to pay for a complete defense--it is still accused people, not public officials, who bear the entire burden of proving their innocence. Tim Bakken believes that reform of the three-hundred-year-old adversarial system is long overdue, and that the government should be responsible for searching for truth--exonerating facts for innocent people--rather than being satisfied with due process. While it is improbable that all the facts in any case will ever be known, the essential point is that the acquisition of facts will almost always benefit an innocent person who has been accused of a crime. Featuring compelling evidence and concrete steps for reform, The Plea of Innocence is at once sensible and revolutionary, a must-read for anyone invested in restoring truth to the justice system." -- Publisher's description

"Providing the first fundamental reform of its kind for the adversarial legal system, The Plea of Innocence introduces a new method through which to free innocent people from prison, a search for truth through the discovery of exonerating facts"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: The importance of facts

Part 1: Why innocent people are convicted

Human error

Devaluation of freedom

Defense of falsity

Emergence and glory of adversarial combat

Alone with no evidence

Part II: A deficient adversarial system

Convictions without truth

The lost dialectic

Trials without facts

Procedures over evidence

Part III: Obtaining correct verdicts

Neutral investigations

A new procedure : the search for truth

Conclusion: The plea of innocence.

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 30. Aug 2022)

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4798-1714-7

OCLC:

1334104686