Modern appellate courts have virtually given prosecutors carte
blanche to use any strategy necessary to win. This has encouraged prosecutors
to constantly push the trial and appellate courts to permit tactics which,
15 years ago, would have resulted in the dismissal of the case. The mandate
that prosecutors strike "hard but not foul blows" is now regarded lightly.
As a result of the appellate courts tendency to condone transgressions
where expedient, some prosecutors no longer "play fair". They play to win
- at all costs. (Lawless, Joseph F., Prosecutorial Misconduct: Law, Procedure,
Forms/Forward by Alan Dershowitz, Kluwler Law Book Publishers, 1985).
The net result is that more and more innocent people are going to
jail today than ever before.
Various recent news articles that document this trend
The key statistic to understanding America, is that it has over 2 million prisoners (!) out of 300 million people. This is 25 per cent of all the prisoners, anywhere, in the entire world. By comparison, the most populous nation, China, with about 1.3 billion people, has only about 300,000 prisoners, despite being denounced by the USA as a "repressive" country. If China had prisoners like the USA, it would have 25 times as many. With 1 out of every 150 Americans in jail right now, and many more having been to jail or on the way, the USA is now the world's big gulag. It is a giant machine for jailing people and making money. With 2 million prisoners, America can be very casual about who it throws into prison. Estimates are that at least 5 per cent, or 100,000 of these prisoners, are completely innocent. This is well shown by the fact that over 100 of the small group of people who have recently been on death row in America - actually sentenced to be executed - have recently been freed, innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. As it is so easy to railroad innocent people in America on capital murder charges, which have mandatory appeals, it is even easier to railroad people on lesser criminal charges, or in malicious lawsuits where victims lose all their money and property. With judges and lawyers making so many mistakes, sending so many innocent people to prison, and wrecking so many lives with lawsuits, the drive to cover-up for judicial mistakes becomes obsessive. The system cannot function without a cover-up. But a cover-up of judicial misconduct becomes an invitation for corruption and bribery and more misconduct, and this vicious cycle keeps escalating.