Coercive plea bargaining has many faces. Prosecutors regularly stack multiple charges, more than the conduct merits, in order to get the defendant to plead to a single lesser charge, or risk being found guilty on all charges and imprisoned for a much longer period.
Black drivers in Philly make up 72% of the traffic stops, but comprise only 42% of the city’s population. In an effort to end discrimination and promote equity on the road, police in that city are no longer permitted to pull people over for minor traffic violations.
The Supreme Court struck down mandatory sentences of life imprisonment without parole for children under 18. In response, Missouri converted life-without-parole sentences into life-with-parole. The Missouri Board of Probation then denied parole for almost everyone who qualified, circumventing the Supreme Court’s decision.
Straw purchasing is one of the most common ways criminals acquire guns, and research has shown that women account for 80% of all straw purchases nationwide.
Sandra Bland was pulled over because a police officer said she failed to signal a turn. Philando Castile was stopped for an allegedly malfunctioning brake light. Daunte Wright was driving a car with an expired registration tag. Bland, Castile, and Wright were ultimately killed by the police. Police action should make people safer, but none of these stops were in the interest of public safety.
In criminal courts throughout this country, victims of police abuse — illegal stops and frisks, car stops and searches, home raids, manufactured charges and excessive force — routinely forgo their constitutional right to challenge police abuse in a pretrial hearing in exchange for plea deals.
Conditions were so horrible that the Justice Department concluded they likely violate the Constitutions prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Only 4% of the world’s female population lives in the U.S., the U.S. accounts for more than 30% of the worlds incarcerated women.
Handy is one of only two officers held to account in 201 wrongful homicide convictions since 1990 in Kentucky, Illinois and Oklahoma. Taxpayers in those states paid a combined $417.3 million to settle 74 cases.
Millions of Americans have had their drivers licenses suspended, and not because of unsafe driving or other safety concerns, but because of government imposed debt they can’t afford to pay.
