Confessions were once considered to be, in law, the highest form of evidence. For quite a long time, it was considered implausible that one would confess to a crime they did not commit. Nowadays, not just in light of the naturally unreliable nature of evidence gathered through torture, but through unfair police practices, this is no longer believed- in fact the Police and Criminal Evidence Act has provisions ensuring that evidence gathered through “oppressive” means is to be excluded from court.
But oppressive means of interrogation- the main concern of the PACE provisions- are not the only source of unreliable suspect testimony. Sometimes, the legal system has its own incentives to produce bad evidence. A particularly sad case is this one from Virginia, which I find via Radley Balko’s twitter.
They believed that their son was innocent but were afraid that Virginia’s penal system would grab hold of him and never let go.
So Cherri Dulaney and Edgar Coker Sr. told 15-year-old Edgar Jr. to plead guilty to raping a 14-year-old friend. Their court-appointed attorney told them that was better than risking adult charges and a lengthy prison term.
Two months after their decision, in November 2007, the girl admitted that she had lied.
What we’re seeing here is what the legal profession may refer to as “plea bargaining”- which usually manifests itself in the act of persuading a suspect to give a guilty plea to charges lesser than they would otherwise stand trial for. In such a case, it’s a guaranteed lower sentence in exchange for the risk of a greater one. Although somewhat frowned upon under English law, it’s a widely used practice in the US. However, as the case of Coke Jr shows, it allows for the innocent to face guilt for something they didn’t commit, regardless of their innocence- accept the plea bargain, and they get a lower sentence. Refuse, and there is probably sufficient “evidence” to convict regardless. For this reason, I would refer to it not as “plea bargaining”, but as “bribery and intimidation”; or maybe a form of legal extortion. Either way, for the innocent, they are handed a situation in which heads they lose, tails, they’ll probably lose worse.
While looking up the US practice of plea bargaining, I found a somewhat shocking piece of Federal statute (11(c)(1)(B)) that states that in some circumstances, means that despite an agreement on the part of the defense to consent to a plea bargain, the defendant can find himself facing a full length sentence contrary to the agreement, but also without the ability to take back his guilty plea. Such a morally dubious practice, you would hope, was beyond the limits of any institution claiming to support justice and the rule of law, right? Sadly not.
Coke Jr is still in prison. A victim of the legal system, he is unable as of yet to get a retrial, or a successful appeal. The Rule of Law needs more than mere procedure and box ticking before locking up an innocent man and patting itself on the back; it needs to be able to adapt to amend its own mistakes. But plea bargaining doesn’t facilitate this to any great degree- it may, at best, take a criminal off the streets for a lesser period than justice demands; at worst, it creates new victims like Coke Jr.
Oh, one final thing: Now that we know Coke Jr’s “victim” was telling porkies, and that he ended up in jail regardless… aren’t you glad rape doesn’t have the death penalty?
