The cops had coerced a confession from retarded kid and he was convicted of robbing and burning alive an 80 year old widow in their small town. 10 years later the real killer confessed and Johnny was set free after having been severely tramatized in prison all that time. Great system, coerced confessions are admissable but jury nullification pamphlets are not. Maybe if juries had more power there would be fewer fuck ups like these.
WS: John, I probably am one of the last persons to defend the empire, but I have to say that the empire has one of the best and fairest legal systems on earth in terms of access to courts, access to competent legal representation, and relative impartiality of the process. This is not to say that the system is not abused for political purposes or that mistakes are not made - but there is no such a thing as an error- and corruption-free institutions, legal or otherwise.
I am not a big fan of the jury system - I think that jurors are prone to manipulation cognitive distortions, prejudice etc., and that in certain cases the justice would be better served if the determination of facts was made by professional judges. But on the other hand, the professional-judges only approach is more prone to political manipulation. Or professional burnout and cynicism, as it is often the case of social workers and other who deal with social bottom feeders on a daily basis.
Honestly, I do not think that our prisons are populated by framed innocents - I am pretty sure the great majority were guilty - a few high profile cases of wrongly accused notwithstanding. We may debate the usefulness or ethical dimensions of certain laws - such as the idiotic drug laws - but promulgation of laws is a political not a judicial process. People serve life terms for smoking weed not because the judicial system is corrupt, but because politicians promulgate idiotic laws to score points with idiotic voters.
Wojtek