Honesty is to American justice as faith is to religion. Our system of justice relies on the truthfulness of those administering it, which is why it takes a miracle to get through it. Moreover, in the U.S. , justice has morphed into an extraordinarily expensive, arcane, no holds barred, political theatre of war between criminal prosecutors and defense attorneys with life and liberty at stake where wrongfully charged defendants become additional crime victims.

Most Americans believe the justice system, primarily, protects the law-abiding from law-breakers by convicting only scofflaws. All defendants are entitled to a “day in court,” or trial, the ultimate tool of justice, designed to ascertain the truth and enable a sage judge or jury of peers to determine guilt or innocence. The trial was designed to be the quintessential surgical tool to get at the true essence of an issue, however, the system's primary tool to achieve the goal of “justice for all” has, instead, become a dull chainsaw, running on empty.

The system is broken because of unintended consequences. The system-wide emphasis on conviction versus a genuine quest for truth has had the undesired results of an unacceptable level of wrongful convictions, by any standard. There are more people in U.S. prisons, now nearly 2.5 million, than any nation on earth where records are kept. Is this efficient or feckless?

THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE : The “presumption of guilt ,” not innocence , tracks defendants throughout the system. Imagine law enforcement arresting those they “presumed to be innocent.” In virtually all arrests, law enforcement makes a “prophecy of guilt,” early on, then ‘develops” appropriate evidence to prosecute and convict, too often, improperly/illegally. Once committed, for obvious reasons, officials will not/cannot reverse themselves without embarrassment and/or worse. The theory is that the defendant would not have been arrested if it was not believed he was guilty. The trial has become a forum for the defendant to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, he is not guilty. . This is not to say that anyone, ever, presumes the defendant is innocent. Even a “not guilty” verdict does not proclaim the defendant “innocent.”

The courts support prosecution for conviction , not exoneration, regardless of truth and/or innocence. The justice system looks at the trial as a tool to convict; prosecutors are paid, promoted, and praised for their convictions , vilified as being “soft on crime,” demoted, even fired for a higher than average acquittal record. The same applies to judges, most of whom are former prosecutors. Judges are not, as is the common misconception, neutral “referees” officiating in trials, leaning in favor of protecting defendants' rights. Law enforcement is geared for conviction and has no real mechanism for handling those wrongfully charged. All of this leads to trials that have become an arena where winning is paramount, not forums to discover the truth of an issue.

•  ARREST WITHOUT EVIDENCE: Officials can and do arrest on no, flawed, even fabricated, evidence. Affidavits are sworn, under penalty of perjury, so judges, relying upon the honesty of law enforcement and prosecutors, approve such documents without corroboration of the evidence in them. Judges are unable to verify evidence in a “sworn officer's” affidavit, anyway. There are evidentiary requirements for arrest, search and seizure and preliminary hearings. However, they are based upon the premise that officers of the law and courts will rise to these standards of law, voluntarily, accurately and truthfully. Many do not. The warrant procedure is not at all as portrayed in film and on television where the cops labor all night to get enough evidence so a judge will sign a warrant. When deemed “necessary,” law enforcement becomes “creative.”

Frequently, in cases where there is little or no evidence, the “instincts and experience” of law enforcement point them to a suspect early in the investigation. To validate these de facto “declarations of guilt,” officers and/or prosecutors “fudge” evidence to arrest and prosecute. The conviction becomes, in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy of guilt. Officials “amplify” weak evidence; falsify forensics that would be difficult/impossible for the defense to verify; manipulate witness testimony, often committing perjury themselves with virtual impunity (officials refer to police testimony as “testi-lying”); avoid investigation of other suspects; and withhold exculpatory evidence to strengthen the case validating their “prophecy of guilt.”

These practices are widely accepted and the courts tend to overlook such malfeasance with rulings that are no more than an official “wink, wink,” if it helps convict, especially those viewed as “worthless” and/or “a danger to society.” Once this declaration is made, officials rarely admit malfeasance or incompetence, even if evidence is developed exonerating the defendant. Prosecutors are often reluctant to reverse their convictions despite being presented with incontrovertible DNA or other evidence, exonerating a convicted defendant.

•  YEARS OF INCARCERATION WITH NO TRIAL : Routinely, defendants, many who present no danger or the very remote possibility of flight, are held without bail or under clearly unaffordable bail, for years. This prosecution tool, that has no defense equivalent, drains defense funds, a key to a successful prosecution. In the case of a wrongfully accused person, either they must stay in jail or spend inordinate sums to be released. It tends to more readily more defendants to plea bargain

•  SPEEDY TRIAL IS A MYTH : In most states a defendant is entitled to a trial within 75 to 90 days of arraignment. However, going to trial within that time is virtually never an appropriate defense strategy, even if the defendant is innocent and can produce proof of innocence. The theory of a “speedy trial” was to allow the wrongfully accused an expedient way to correct it. Obviously, it matters little difference how quickly a guilty person is tried and convicted. In practice, it is disadvantageous for a defendant to move down a quick road to trial; a virtual assurance of conviction.

This principle we all take for granted, assumes a person's innocence is meaningful to all participants in a trial, but there is no more perilous mistaken belief than this. The more serious the crime alleged, the longer it will take the defense to prepare for trial. Law enforcement and prosecutors have already assembled the substantive case to get an indictment or for a preliminary hearing. Often, especially in a case where a person has been wrongfully accused, he has no idea what the case against him is or what the evidence may consist of. This is yet another prime example where innocence is actually a detriment in a trial, since the guilty are well aware what the evidence might be..

Therefore, the more quickly a trial occurs after an indictment or preliminary hearing, the greater the possibility of conviction. The reasons are manifold. To point out just a few: prosecutors delay getting key discovery to the defense; defense research must verify key facets of law enforcement investigation, often flawed or worse; in practice, innocent defendants are restricted to actual facts, prosecutors and guilty defendants have no such restraints; prosecutors omit relevant, exculpatory evidence and/or hide it in a massive “paper dump” that only qualified legal professionals, familiar with the details of the case, at high rates of pay, can sort through over many hours, weeks, months.

•  MYTH OF INCREASED CONVICTION/DECREASED CRIME RATE : Statistics, like holograms, look a little different from every angle. About 85% of “convictions” in the U.S. are not really convictions at all. Ostensibly, to save the courts' time and money, in collaboration with law enforcement, prosecutors “over-charge” defendants. That is, in the majority of criminal cases, the defendant is charged with more serious crimes than there is evidence to support. Law enforcement then persuades the defendant:

•  That sufficient evidence does exist, when most often it does not; that he will be charged and almost certainly convicted with a long sentence, innocent or not.

•  Even if he is innocent, If he goes to trial it could take years (it will) and, should he lose and appeal, he could spend many more years in jail (he would) and still be sentenced at the highest end of the sentencing standard..

Then, for a the hapless defendant's admission of guilt, regardless of claims of innocence or even the probability of it, he will be offered the opportunity to plea to a lesser offence, carrying a lighter sentence with “some charges dropped.” .

This is a “Plea Bargain,” not a conviction; defendants waive their right to a trial.

Therefore, without a trial, and to avoid extra years in jail, many who are innocence accept such plea-bargains or, essentially, negotiated convictions. In fact, many of the serious crimes that are plea-bargained have not really been solved. Countless defendants, later proven innocent, had accepted negotiated convictions. Undoing such “convictions” is usually impossible so a life can/will be ruined as a result.

Estimates by legal professionals run to 10% or more wrongfully convicted and advocacy organizations such as Innocence Project have exonerated hundreds. Tragically, when an innocent person accepts a plea-bargai,; the criminals who actually committed the crimes are still at large.

By reducing charges in a plea bargain, the seriousness of the crime committed/solved is officially diminished, often from a felony to a misdemeanor. The original, more serious, crime is claimed to be “solved” and the case is listed as a conviction. Depending on the spin needed, prosecutors cite increased convictions overall and/or fewer serious crimes prosecuted.

Those believing that their innocence will inevitably lead to acquittal are naive and find, too late, of the irrelevance of innocence in today's American system of justice.

•  ESTIMATES OF INNOCENTS IN JAIL RUN TO 200,000 OR MORE : If that were true, what an outrage! Remarkably, it is. You may have heard that Barry Scheck, nationally known trial attorney, has headed up a similar non-profit organization, Innocence Project for several years. This group has been responsible for 212 cases overturned, some from death row, primarily based on DNA evidence. The U.S. has the largest inmate population of any country in the world, over 2 million . Because of the overwhelming numbers of wrongfully accused cases pending that involve exculpatory DNA, Barry's organization and others like it are unable help those wrongfully charged or those crimes that do not involve forensic DNA evidence. Justice On Trial has specialized in this much more difficult to correct area of injustice.

•  THE CSI EFFECT : A relatively new problem with justice in America has recently emerged. Most of what the public knows about the legal system comes from media reporting and the pseudo-documentaries that purport to depict law enforcement realistically. Known collectively as the “C SI Effect,” the phenomenon affects not only trials but also the public's perception of what happens in criminal investigations. Simply put, “It just ain't so.” The altruism we see in Cold Case Files; the intense investigation we see on CSI, SVU; the reluctance of prosecutors and judges to pervert the legal system we see in “Law and Order” is “creative license” taken by teleplay writers and it is what should happen in our courts, but rarely does.

Legal professionals are concerned with the heavy influence of these semi-fictional dramatic presentations on the outcome of trials where “CSI expert” juries base their verdicts on their own “ forensic evaluations” of the evidence. In effect, jurors who rely on the “expertise” acquired by viewing TV-crime programs are overruling the expert forensic witnesses. Courts, though they should, rarely instruct juries to disregard their “TV crime busting experience,” fanciful at best, when reaching a verdict. Trials become “battles of experts,” with the outcome influenced on who can afford the most and best. No defendant has pockets as deep as the government's.

That hundreds of innocents are being exonerated every year is testament to the fact that thousands more wrongfully accused/convicted languish in our jails and prisons. These tragedies cannot be eliminated entirely but we do have it within our power to reduce these injustices below current, outrageous, levels.