Jed S. Rakoff (a Senior Federal District Court Judge) wrote a book titled Why The Innocent Plead Quilty and The Guilty Go Free in 2021. It should be required reading for all Americans; but, it’s a must read if you want to understand how the DOJ (and its components) railroads Kirk Cottom, Jim Larkin and others.
At the beginning of chapter 2 he rejects the mythos: The criminal justice system in the United States today bears little relationship to what the founding fathers contemplated, what the media portray, or what the average American believes.
He then goes on to explain that our system has devolved into a system of unfair plea bargains. He notes that when the cases are not dismissed for other reasons, 97% of federal cases are resolved with plea agreements & those agreements determine the possible sentences. He explains that those plea bargains are unfair because they put the defendant at a distinct disadvantage because the prosecutor has all the cards and the defense has none. The prosecutor often has a complete police report, witness interview transcripts, grand jury testimony transcripts & forensic reports. This inherent knowledge advantage usually makes the prosecutor overconfident in his case.
Judge Rakoff notes that the defense attorney is often flying blind against an overconfident prosecutor when plea negotiations begin shortly after the defendant is arrested. This power imbalance is then further exacerbated by the mandatory minimums a lot of laws impose & the draconian sentencing guidelines enacted in 1984. This results in the prosecutor offering defense counsel an offer to plead to a lower offense than the prosecutor will charge if they reject the initial plea offer. Judge Rakoff – and anyone with a rational mind – rejects the Supreme Courts nonsense that this plea bargaining process is a “fair and voluntary contractual agreement between two relatively equal parties”. It’s a shakedown, where the prosecutor inflicts its will on the defendant. Judge Rakoff then notes that many people choose to plead guilty because they are guilty but he also notes, because of our terribly flawed system, too many innocent people plead guilty because they have no confidence that a corrupt system would (or could) exonerate them and choose to cut their losses.
This is how Kirk Cottom got railroaded into a conditional plea. As readers know, I’ve been trying to get the specifics for over two years now. The corrupt system likes to keep its secrets. I took a conditional plea because the only evidence against me was the NIT Report and I was sure it was 1) Falsified & 2) inadmissible at trial.
On page 30, Judge Rakoff finally gives me an explanation about how my plea agreement ended up so vague. …in situations in which the prosecutor and the defense counsel recognize that the guilty plea is somewhat artificial they will jointly arrive at written statement of guilt for the defendant to agree to that cleverly covers all the bases without providing much detail.
That explanation provides compelling evidence for why the shills and my attorneys refuse to answer any questions about their participation in Becker’s conspiracy. The Judge also notes that the DOJ knows that most of the “forensic sciences” are not science at all. And also points out the a lot of eyewitness testimony is garbage.
Finally, Judge Rakoff also explains how the falsified and fabricated TB2 NIT Report got “admitted”, Judges have an unconscious bias to allow the prosecutor to admit their crap evidence. Ultimately my case revolves around Becker’s conspiracy to hid the facts about the TB2 NIT Report.