Serious question, what crime do you think you could get accused of with "slam dunk" level of evidence that you were actually innocent of?
It takes some serious mental gymnastics (e.g., your doppelganger commits a crime right as you walk by) or you living in a massively corrupt area.
As far as money goes, you can get a publicly appointed attorney that the state pays for if you cannot afford an attorney on your own. Some of these folks are really good, some aren't. That said, if you're totally innocent, no lawyer who has passed the bar should have any trouble getting the charges dropped. Again, DAs don't just sit around trying to frame people for crimes they didn't commit -- they have enough actual work to do.
I’m very familiar with this case. Note that there obviously was not a slam dunk level of evidence, the defendants were declared innocent, and the DA was disbarred. Sounds like the system works to me (although with undue stress).
What percentage of cases do you think are like this? My guess is sub 0.01% — it’s just not that common according to the defense attorneys I know. When it does happen, bar complaints fly. My friend tells me that there definitely are wrongful convictions, but it is often not that the person was innocent of a crime, but that they were convicted of the wrong charge. As far as I am concerned, these types of cases seem to be very much the exception rather than the rule — no system is perfect, and I am fully aware of that.
I have said elsewhere that a corrupt district or DA is a caveat to my stance. Ditto with high profile “must try” cases (I was a juror in one of those).
That was a district with a corrupt DA — it happens. The cool thing to me is that the dude was disbarred — the system worked.
I will also add that I think universities interpret rules far too generously (more like guilty until proven innocent), and I don’t agree with that at all, but that does not always become a legal matter. When it does, it is often a must-case for political reasons, and plea deals getnwokky then. I’ve said all of this elsewhere.
Serious question, is it your contention that no lawyer has ever lost a case defending an innocent person, in the entire history of the bar association, because that's just impossible?
> That said, if you're totally innocent, no lawyer who has passed the bar should have any trouble getting the charges dropped.
That's...amusing.
> Again, DAs don't just sit around trying to frame people for crimes they didn't commit
Mostly not, it's more likely to be child who conceive of the frame and manufacture evidence (both planting physical evidence and falsifying testimonial evidence.) Plenty of groups of cops have been found doing this, sometimes to cover premeditated police crimes, and sometimes to cover for police errors.
And sometimes the FBI simply invents entire fields of forensic science so that they can have “experts” testify in their (and state) trials to support the guilt of whomever law enforcement is directed at.
The idea that it is trivial for a minimally qualified lawyer to ensure that the factually innocent walk free in America is laughably naive.
It takes some serious mental gymnastics (e.g., your doppelganger commits a crime right as you walk by) or you living in a massively corrupt area.
As far as money goes, you can get a publicly appointed attorney that the state pays for if you cannot afford an attorney on your own. Some of these folks are really good, some aren't. That said, if you're totally innocent, no lawyer who has passed the bar should have any trouble getting the charges dropped. Again, DAs don't just sit around trying to frame people for crimes they didn't commit -- they have enough actual work to do.