I keep hearing about people in jail for 3+ years awaiting trial. If they’re ‘innocent until proven guilty’ I dont understand why they are confined. I thought there was a right to a speedy trial also or is that not really the case?
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“Speedy” is subjective. Some people actually end up pleading guilty to the crime because the time spent waiting on trial in jail is longer than the sentence would require them to spend in prison. It becomes a point of, “if you plead guilty today, you’ll go home. You’ve spent your time.” So people will plead guilty at that point to go home as opposed to waiting for their day in court even thought they are innocent. They just want to go home, and then after, they have a criminal record that makes it hard to get jobs despite never actually having done the crime they plead guilty to.
Last week tonight with John Oliver will give a far more cohesive breakdown of how fucked our US court system is if you Google “John Oliver bail reform.”
The US bail system is basically a way to keep poor people subservient to a broken system. A wealthy person in the same situation will afford bail and win their case. A poor person, that can’t afford bail, will spend their time in jail awaiting court, plead guilty to leave, and then be subjected to the fall out.
People are confined to keep poor people poor. That’s the TL;DR of the matter.
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