I think this post will "light up" with stories from across this nation of prosecutorial and L.E. misconduct, negligence and failure to serve and protect. Many may be invalid, but I'd say that these days more will be valid than not. It USED to be a fluke. Now, it's the norm. People used to go to prison for major crimes, caught red-handed or witnessed by others. Are you aware that now you can go to jail for words? Duke isn't a fluke -- you're mistaken.
A person in our country today can actually go to prison if someone walks into a police station and accuses him or her of a crime -- with no evidence, no witnesses to the alleged crime, no NOTHIN'? You can even have up to 60 witnesses to say absolutely NOTHING HAPPENED, THEY WEREN'T EVEN HERE, and it can happen. I've checked among defense attorneys here locally and it happens all the time -- the accuser will lose, of course, but you can be financially ruined proving your innocense, and if you can't afford to defend yourself, you will go to prison on the word of anybody off the street with no proof thereof. Cops salve their consciences with "Better safe than sorry."
Additionally, if you can't afford to wait for the two long years for it to go to trial with your life on hold --because you can't get a job or go to school anywhere in this country with a felony charge hanging over your head, you'll take a plea. Geez, Jezzie, it's like shooting ducks in a barrel for any unscrupulous individual with an axe to grind or uncontrolled envy -- and my Uncle Gouvy and the fellow he ghost-wrote the Constitution for, Mr. Jefferson, never, ever meant it to happen that way.
I may not be a trained professional investigator or have my J.D., but I know when I'm being "shined on" and this is a scam -- a filthy, rotton scam.
Oh, oh, wait -- I'm on a roll -- and don't tell me how after you have proven you are innocent of the charges you can file a lawsuit for damages against the accuser -- you are so dirt poor by the end of the process and so mentally and emotionally drained, you can't pay attention, much less go through the scintilating experience again. Don't give me any crap about that PUL-LEASE!!!
And chances are, your accuser is so dirt poor that that's what she had a target painted on your back for in the first place -- don't give me, "Oh, you can get your expenses back -- ARE YOU KIDDING? Who can make restitution for lives destroyed? I'm thinking only one Person, and He ain't been here to collect, yet.
CG, I know it's a filthy, rotten scam, and have echoed your words with regard to this case many times. But I maintain my disagreement with your position that it is the norm. It isn't.