Let’s say you’re tried for a crime you did not commit and for whatever reason (maybe you know nobody will believe you anyway and just want a lighter sentence) you plead guilty.
Eventually, the guy who actually did it is caught doing another crime, and during the investigation they find undeniable and irrefutable evidence that he, and he alone, committed the original crime. This proves you were innocent.
Can they release you? Or did you seal your fate by pleading guilty?
Yes, when DNA testing came out, it proved many incarcerated people's innocence. I would assume having similar concrete evidence would work in the same way.
Except where the prosecution decided that someone else's DNA just means you had a partner.
Prosecutors really really hate to have a conviction overturned. It's a blot on their record. Judges aren't fond of it either.
They will point out the fact that you pled guilty to block reconsideration of the case, and it takes a mighty effort to get the wheel rolling again.
Seems dumb that it’s a blemish on their record. They met their burden of proof at the time. That’s a win.
Having on record that you convicted an innocent man is never good optics when re-election comes by.
The supreme court has also decided that innocence is not necessarily enough to get you off death row. In the American system, finality is more important that accuracy.
The Supreme Court has not explicitly declared that innocence is not enough to get someone off death row, but it has repeatedly emphasized that a claim of innocence alone is not sufficient grounds to overturn a conviction in federal court, especially if the defendant had a full and fair trial. The Court has, however, acknowledged the risk of executing innocent people and has shown some willingness to consider claims of innocence based on new evidence, particularly in cases where there are serious doubts about guilt.
People sometimes plead guilty to avoid more serious charges or sentencing even if they are innocent.
Yeah that was included in the question.
The police and prosecutors use this tactic every single day to get young, poor, and/ or uneducated people convicted. To quote my uncle the Sherriff, "If they ain't guilty of that, they guilty of somethin' else".
That is not a decent rationalization. It's disgusting. He was a lifelong police officer after the military and also the biggest cocaine dealer in his tri-state area. He was selling the cocaine in bulk to make the crack that he was busting the lower level sellers for and putting them away for a long time. He was white, they weren't.
Sometimes? Probably more often than not.
if you plead guilty, it's not a wrongful conviction (unless coerced)
There's something called an "Alfords Plea", where you don't admit guilt but concede that there's enough evidence to convict.
Define coercion. Is a plea deal coercion? People have taken a plea deal because they were threatened they would gonto prison for a long time except if they took the deal.
a gun to someone's head is coercion. The threat of a longer jail sentence if you don't plead is not coercion.
Exactly what I thought. Only unlikely coercion is accepted. The normal coercion by a corrupt justice system that does actually happen is not considered coercion.
It is sad but understandable that in a failed system coercion by the system can be dismissed.
And just to be clear, threatening someone with anything to get them to do something is coercion. To say it isn't is twisting the meaning of the word.
You have a very bleak outlook of the justice system.
An idealistic view is that an innocent person won't accept a plea, and so a plea deal ensures that a criminal is punished without the risks and costs of a trial. Even more idealistic would be to assume that a prosecutor won't charge someone if they don't have a strong case.
In reality, it's somewhere in between - a lot of criminals plea to lesser charges to avoid the risk of longer jail sentences while prosecutors offer plea deals to avoid the risk of losing the trial. But there are also innocent people who get railroaded into a plea deal.
And just to be clear - the prosecutor/police can't actually threaten jail time, they can only threaten to prosecute more severe charges; jail would only happen if the defendant loses the trial.
Younforgot the other reality where people whonare innocent plea guilty out of desperation.
This is the only answer in all 50 states
It can be, but it'd be very difficult.
If the defendant is adamant about his innocence, his attorney will usually advise them to take an Alford plea. That plea admits there's enough evidence to convict, but allows for a plea deal and appeals.
Source: I was a crime reporter for more than 20 years.
I’m not aware of any cases where this has happened. When you pled guilty, especially as a part of a bargain, you’re usually required to admit in court the elements of the crime you’re pleading guilty to, so the judge has a factual basis to enter the conviction.
Further, if you were to later say, “oh yeah, that wasn’t true” you’ve just admitted to perjury. So, it would be a bad idea to do so.
In some places, e.g. USA, prosecutors will fight to keep wrongful convictions
Almost everywhere.
It really just depends. They normally won't if they are personally convinced of the wrongfulness. But they can be reluctant to change their priors and admit a previous mistake, even in the face of evidence.
There's actually a name for a plea of guilty where you reserve the right to appeal something.
But that's not the only avenue. For instance, you can appeal on the grounds that you only pled guilty because you had ineffective assistance of counsel.
It can be but it's a harder road. Ask the Norfolk Four.
Here's the problem you usually face: once you plead guilty most of your appeal options are gone because you've said you committed the crime. That makes it quite difficult to get the case back into court to review the conviction. However, if you get later evidence that was not available at the time you made your plea that would prove you were not guilty then you you may be able to file a writ of habeus corpus or other action (options will vary by state if it's state conviction) to get the conviction vacated and relieved of whatever is left of the sentence imposed. This answer assumes that the person was convicted of a crime in the U.S.
So overturning a verdict is not an easy thing to do. Getting a second trial after you've been found guilty is not an easy thing to do.
For one, appellate courts are almost never going to be looking at the facts of the case, only the law, so they don't really care if you are innocent or guilty, they care if the lower court erred in determining your guilt.
If you plead guilty, there's not a lot of places for the lower court to make those errors, so it's much harder to get anything overturned.
There are two hard and fast ways that a guilty verdict can be overturned no matter what. The first is if the state erred in bringing forth its case. This could be unreasonable search and seizure, a due process violation, or mishandling of evidence. It could also be outright malfeasance on behalf of the judge or prosecutor. The second way is if new evidence is brought to light that wasn't available at trial; many have been exonerated through newly available DNA evidence techniques.
However, if neither of those things are true, it would be very, very difficult to get your sentence overturned. Even if someone else admits to the crime, that could be considered new evidence, but if someone else doesn't admit to it and just happens to be charged with it, that may not be enough to trigger a retrial of a innocent but charged guilty party.
The second way is if new evidence is brought to light that wasn't available at trial; many have been exonerated through newly available DNA evidence techniques.
Right, the state has an obligation to provide exculpatory evidence to the defendant. If the state can now prove you didn't commit a crime for which you've already been convicted then you basically get out of jail.
I'm reminded of a Canadian case where a guy was convicted of being the Scarborough Rapist. Turns out the actual person was Paul Bernardo, and the the wrongly accused person plead guilty on the basis that he'd get out of prison sooner by admitting guilt when the Crown had "evidence" of the crime.
I got arrested for arsen since I was in the same building that day. No evidence I did it though. (I didn't btw). Since it was a dwelling, and some other bs, I was being charged with 2 felonies and up to 30 years with an insane bail. I just took a plea deal for a month in jail and two misdemeanors. So stupid but seeing those numbers was too scary to fight it. It's like they put a gun in your mouth and tell you to explain why you're innocent. So honestly I don't know, but they're not cool, so I doubt it
Anything's possible within the court system. Talk to your attorney.
Sure
Depends on state law and how they enforce the guilty plea waiver rule. Most times a guilty plea will waive nonjurisdictional defenses, including actual innocence. In my statw, you can get out if a guilty plea only if you prove ineffective assistance of counsel that affected your decision to plead or if there was a fundamental defect in the plea hearing.
Dude, how'd you get on the internet from prison??
They work a prison job for a call center. Cable company of course.
Yes. Just not easily in most cases.
Possibly, but most prosecutors are more worried about conviction rates than justice. There are quite a few stories where an innocent person is left in prison.
Sure. There could have been some error in the acceptance of the plea.
There was a case where a group of teens/young adults plead guilty to starting a fire that killed some people. (Later, a lot of reports showed that the detective had a history of abusing people to get confessions.) And then one day they watched an episode of Myth Busters in prison which proved that they could not have started the fire that way. Also, the fire forensic evidence was proved to not be factual during the time they had been in prison.
Took forever to get them out even though multiple experts were on their side. Edit: Spelling
There are options, but it’s tough. Part of it is a corrupt court system, but part of it is a huge loophole if this was easily allowed.
Let’s say you murder someone, and before police even find the body, your friend comes forward and confesses. You write out an entire confession and fully agree with police, sign everything and agree to the maximum sentence. Case closed. Evidence isn’t just lost, it’s never even collected. Then a couple months later, you come forward with 24 hour surveillance cameras showing your friend in another state at a huge convention where countless people saw him and they captured photos and videos of him as he was taking pictures with other guests. So clearly he was wrongfully convicted and he is let out.
What change do the police have of convicting you now that it’s months later and all the evidence is gone?
unless you were coerced or misled into pleading guilty, you accepted the consequences/benefits that come with that. you decided to take responsibility for it even if you didn’t do it. i think you should be able to get it overturned but realistically you may not be able to.
It can happen but it’s quite difficult, and the conviction of someone else for the crime doesn’t necessarily seal the deal.
You’d probably have to show that something very bad happened in the conviction process, like the defendant was mentally ill or their attorney was corrupt.
It's going to be very difficult, but yes, it happens.
Often if you plead guilty you give up the right to all appeals so there would be no chance to overturn anything
Innocence is not a bar to uphold a conviction
Its sounds stupid but its a fact. An appeal needs a REASON not just you plead guilty by mistake etc
The judge literally talks to the defendant before accepting a guilty plea (and there are cases where judge refuses to accept them and orders a trial if in defendants best interest)
Justice may be delayed, but never denied. Irrefutable evidence usually trumps a forced confession.
There have been plenty of cases where new or concealed evidence of someone's innocence turns up, and those with the power to do anything about it flatly refuse to do so.
Antonin Scalia, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the US, once said that proven innocence wasn’t a good reason to stop an execution.
Justice is almost ALWAYS freaking denied. Just because something sounds profound on dramatic TV, doesn't make it true.
Yeah it’s happened before, most often when the confession/guilty plea was coerced
Go Irish ☘️
There are a lot of Michigan fans in this thread apparently