Dark Pleas: Trading Your Innocence for Freedom
Laurence Colletti
Executive Producer at Legal Talk Network. ??LaurenceColletti.com
In the Criminal Justice System, there is a special name for high-leverage plea deals offered to the wrongfully convicted. Typically, these deals are offered while the Court is deciding whether or not to grant them a new trial. Generally, the innocent person has been incarcerated for many years and is getting desperate. The prosecution's case may have weakened but they are not giving up. And that's usually when a plea deal materializes. But there is a catch...
"You can go free but you have to plea guilty"
A term coined by Justice Michael P. Donnelly of the Supreme Court of Ohio , "Dark Pleas" refers to a post-conviction-high-leverage plea deal. In these negotiations, the prosecution holds "all the cards". The innocent-prisoner is behind bars with diminished Constitutional protections. They were previously found guilty and so they are no longer "presumed innocent" in the eyes of the law. Effectively, they don't have the right to a speedy trial after conviction. And making matters even worse, their "Brady Right" to evidence of innocence (exculpatory evidence) has greatly eroded.
All of that leaves an innocent person in a catch 22. In order to go free, they have to admit they did something that they didn't do.
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In this episode, host?Michael Semanchik?sits down with?Michael Donnelly, Associate Justice on the Ohio Supreme Court, and?Joanna Sanchez, the Director of the Wrongful Conviction Project at the Ohio Public Defender’s Office. Together, they talk about the origin of Dark Pleas, how they are used, and their impact on the Criminal Justice System.