False guilty pleas now amount to 11percentt of the exonerations on the registry, up from 8percentt as of two years ago.
No one would be bound to follow the magistrate's recommendation but maybe, just maybe, the use of this "mediating magistrate" (again, my term) would help decrease the number of false guilty pleas, and maybe even encourage prosecutors to agree to dismiss cases that should never have been brought in the first place.
The findings of the report, released on Wednesday, suggest both systemic problems – misconduct by police and officials, false confessions, guilty pleas in cases without crimes – and a growing movement to investigate and overturn wrongful convictions.
After a week of frantic searches through hills and fields, of false sightings, tearful pleas from family members and bouquets of purple balloons — her favorite color — tied to mailboxes, the police announced on Friday that they had found her body near an abandoned mine shack in an open area less than 10 miles from her home.
Those charges were dropped in exchange for a guilty plea to false imprisonment –- a move that some have called necessary.
On Monday, San Francisco was aflutter as the city's sheriff Ross Mirkarimi pleaded guilty to misdemeanor false imprisonment -- a plea bargain that allowed the sheriff to avoid a brutal (and very public) domestic violence trial.
Pettitte's plea is a false distinction.
Younger children also lack the capacity to properly engage in the criminal justice system, are more likely to accept a plea bargain, give false confessions or fail to keep track of court proceedings.
A judge signed a bench warrant yesterday for the arrest of Assemblyman Roger L. Green after he failed to pay a $2,000 fine stemming from his guilty plea for submitting false travel expenses.
Garretson, 68, a Mesa, Ariz., resident, pleaded guilty April 18 in United States District Court to one count of fraud and false statement as part of a plea agreement with the United States Attorney's Office.
