Thousands of innocent people go to prison in the US because the plea bargain process is broken, a prominent New York judge has said.
Manhattan Federal Judge Jed Rakoff, who sentenced India- born former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta to two years in prison on insider trading charges in 2012, argues judges should become more involved in the process so prosecutors armed with harsh mandatory minimum sentences are less able to bully defendants, he said.
"The current process is totally different from what the founding fathers had in mind," because nearly all cases end in pleas, the 70-year-old judge told the New York Daily News.
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the latter agrees to plead guilty to a charge in return for some concession from the prosecutor.
Rakoff said he is proposing a new mechanism that would designate junior judges to hear evidence and issue plea bargain recommendations early on in cases.
The junior judges would hear from prosecutors and defence lawyers separately before weighing in. Their recommendations would not be binding.
Rakoff says the setup, which could begin as a pilot programme, would bring plea bargaining out from behind closed doors and relieve pressure on defendants deciding whether to risk a longer sentence by heading to trial.
"There are some people who will say, 'I'm innocent and I'm going to fight to the end,' but they're the exception," Rakoff said.
"When people hear about crime going up they want higher penalties," Rakoff said.
"When they hear about crime going down they see the higher penalties as working, and they may be right because we're locking up a lot of guilty people along with some innocent people."
The judge has made no formal proposal and admits his plan is not fully formed.
A spokesman for Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara declined to comment on Rakoff's proposals.
How many innocent or partly innocently people are locked up on false plea agreements? Rakoff says estimates have ranged from 1 per cent to 8 per cent of the prison population. Even 0.5 per cent would total over 10,000 people, Rakoff said.
