“Blindfolded Juries, Coerced Convictions: Why Prosecutors Often Win Before Trials Even Begin”

The title of this post is the title of this new article by Clark Neily that serves as the cover story of the latest issue of the Cato Institute’s Free Society magazine. Here is how the article begins:

The Bill of Rights dedicates more words to the resolution of criminal charges than any other subject, establishing a criminal justice system in which defendants are afforded rigorous protections such as the presumption of innocence, the right to counsel, and trial by jury.

But the Founders would hardly recognize today’s adjudicative process, which is more akin to an industrial-scale assembly line that prioritizes expediency over fairness and churns out guilty pleas through ad hoc, extraconstitutional dealmaking that systematically excludes ordinary citizens from a process in which they were meant to be the key players. And the small handful of defendants who resist the often palpably coercive pressure to plead guilty will be tried by a jury that has been carefully curated and indoctrinated to ensure it is free of people who understand the historic powers of jurors in our system, including but not limited to conscientious acquittal.