Related: Why Innocent People Plead Guilty (written by a U.S. federal judge) http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-peop...
> It would be nice to live in a society when the certainty of someone having committed a crime directly relates to the justice system's proclamation of guilt.
Such a great distillation of the national shame of the United States. Agreed!
> "N Guilty Men" philosophical debates are too far above today's justice system for serious consideration.
I do not concur. I think that this is exactly the kind of thinking that we need to motivate ourselves to replace the current "criminal justice" system in full.
Instead, for most Americans, for whom a competent lawyer is outside of the range of reasonable cost, we only get public defenders. A prosecutor's career is built on the back of successful convictions, whether just or not, while a public defender's career is built on the number of cases they can speedily close. For both, the most advantageous and therefore most common resolution is a guilty plea bargain.
"N Guilty Men" philosophical debates are too far above today's justice system for serious consideration.