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THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE The “presumption of guilt,” not innocence, tracks defendants throughout the system. Imagine law enforcement arresting those they “presumed innocent.” In virtually all arrests, law enforcement makes a “prophecy of guilt,” early on, then ‘develops” appropriate evidence to prosecute and convict. (See the award winning 2002 feature film, “Insomnia”” for a realistic depiction of this law enforcement mindset with truly disastrous results. Also read Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Humes’ “Mean Justice” to see how rampant, and dangerous, this can be in a community where it is nurtured, unchecked.) The courts support prosecution for conviction, not exoneration. Prosecutors are paid to convict, not acquit. Most judges are former prosecutors and are not, as is the common misconception, neutral “referees” leaning in favor of protecting defendants’ rights. Can you imagine a trial where prosecutors actually presented exculpatory evidence, which, by the way, the law prescribes? ARREST WITHOUT EVIDENCE: Officials can and do arrest on no, or flawed, even fabricated, evidence. Affidavits are sworn, under penalty of perjury, so judges, relying upon the honesty of law enforcement and prosecutors, approve such documents without corroboration. Judges are unable to verify evidence in a “sworn officer’s” affidavit. There are evidentiary requirements for arrest, search and seizure and preliminary hearings. However, they are based upon the premise that officers of the law and courts will rise to these standards of law, voluntarily, accurately and truthfully. Some do not. Frequently, in cases where there is little or no evidence, the “instincts and experience” of law enforcement point them to a suspect early in the investigation. To validate these de facto “declarations of guilt,” officers and/or prosecutors “fudge” evidence to arrest and prosecute so conviction becomes, in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy of guilt. Officials “amplify” weak evidence; falsify forensics that would be difficult for the defense to verify; manipulate witness testimony; avoid investigation of other suspects, and withhold exculpatory evidence to strengthen the case and validate that prophecy of guilt. Once this declaration is made, officials rarely admit malfeasance or incompetence, even if evidence is developed exonerating the defendant. Prosecutors are often reluctant to reverse their convictions even when presented with incontrovertible DNA or other evidence, exonerating a convicted defendant. YEARS OF INCARCERATION WITH NO TRIAL: Routinely, defendants, many who present no danger or the very remote possibility of flight, are held without bail or unaffordable bail, for years. “Speedy trial” is another fallacy of the American Judicial system. The more serious the crime alleged, the longer it will take the defense to prepare for trial. A current was in jail for thirty months without trial before the case was dismissed. With the assistance of Justice On Trial, a motion to dismiss was filed and the case was ultimately dismissed. The defendant served a total of 30 months without having been convicted or ever having a trial. Unfortunately, this case is not unique. MYTH OF INCREASED CONVICTION/DECREASED CRIME RATE: Statistics, like holograms, look a little different from every angle. About 85% of “convictions” in the U.S. are not really convictions at all. Ostensibly, to save the courts’ time and money, in collaboration with law enforcement, prosecutors “over-charge” defendants. That is, in the majority of criminal cases, the defendant is charged with more serious crimes than there is evidence to support. Law enforcement then persuades the defendant that sufficient evidence does exist, when often it does not; that he will be charged and almost certainly convicted with a long sentence. The defendant is told that if he goes to trial it could take years (it will) and, should he lose and appeal, he could spend many years in jail (he would) and still be sentenced at the highest end of the sentencing standard, without “time served” being counted because he was uncooperative by not accepting the plea bargain. Then, for a the hapless defendant’s admission of guilt, regardless of claims of innocence, he will be offered the opportunity to plea to a lesser offence, carrying a lighter sentence, usually with “time served” counted. This is a “Plea Bargain,” not a conviction; defendants waive their right to a trial. Therefore, without a trial, and to avoid extra years in jail, many of whom claim innocence accept such plea-bargains. In fact, many of the serious crimes that are plea- bargained have not really been solved. Countless defendants, later proven innocent, had accepted negotiated convictions. Estimates by legal professionals run to 10% or more wrongfully convicted and advocacy organizations such as Innocence Project have exonerated hundreds. Tragically, when an innocent person accepts a plea-bargain, the criminals who actually committed the crimes are still at large. All prosecutors erroneously claim these plea-bargains as convictions. It is not done to save the courts’ time and money, as officials claim, though, without plea bargains, the American justice system would grind to a halt, but to make the job of law enforcement and criminal prosecution much easier and to make “conviction” and crime statistics look more positive and impressive. By reducing charges in a plea bargain, the seriousness of the crime committed/solved is officially diminished, often from a felony to a misdemeanor. The original, more serious, crime is “solved” and the case is listed as a prosecution/conviction on the lesser offence. Depending on the spin needed, prosecutors cite increased convictions overall and/or fewer serious crimes prosecuted. Those believing that their innocence will lead to acquittal are naïve and discover, too late, the irrelevance of innocence in today’s American system of justice. ESTIMATES OF INNOCENTS IN U.S. JAILS AND PRISONS RUN TO 200,000 OR MORE: If that were true, what an outrage! But, it is. You may have heard that Barry Scheck, nationally known trial attorney, has headed up a similar non-profit organization, The Innocence Project for several years. This group has been responsible for more than 300 convictions overturned, some from death row, primarily based on DNA evidence. (Read “Actual Innocence”by Barry Scheck, for more information and some astonishing statistics on numbers of innocent inmates in U.S. jails). The U.S. imprisons more

La Pouce Rouillé It’s a RUSTY THUMB! “He always broke things, fer chrissakes!” my mother says with a disdainful flip of her wrist when describing my youth, as if I had been a chronic poop-tosser. “Well…it wasn’t really, well……. intentional, I suppose,” she says, tilting her head with a scornful eye roll, shrugging with chagrin. Her expression softens as though looking at a dead goldfish. “Things just fell apart in his little hands. Poof!” she adds, fluttering her fingers suggesting a disheartening rain of parts. “I was flummoxed, really flummoxed, ya’ know?” she adds, dredging that word from my childhood and looking up in a look of, why me, Lord? “It was just…spooky, ya’ know?” she adds, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially. “I seriously considered an exorcism!” No exorcism, amount of dispossession, voodoo or David Blaine level magic would have made a difference then, nor would it now. Moreover, there has never been any research to find a cause, cure or treatment; none is planned or ever will be. “Glass Jaw?” “Trick Knee?” “Tennis Elbow?” “Tin Ear?” In comparison, those are as Athlete’s Foot is to Leprosy to this affliction. In Tom Robbins’ 1976 cult classic novel, “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” he gave protagonist Sissy Hankshaw enormous, ludicrous ones that she used in expanding her prodigious free spirit. Thumb (thum) n. The short thick digit of the human hand, next to the index finger and opposable to each of the other four digits What anthropologists call “evolutionary triumphs,” separating humans from other primates, are liabilities for me. In “Cowgirls,” Sissy’s were, thick digits, enormous, flour sack-like appendages, as close as one could ever come to being, literally “all thumbs.” Nonetheless, Sissy’s condition was a mighty asset to advance her thumb-intensive avocation, hitchhiking. The French erected their majestic 18 ton, pouce en l’air, in the middle of the plaza grounds at Arc de la Defense in Paris, France’s Pentagon. It is uncertain if the French intended this forty-feet-high metal sculpture as a friendly “thumbs up!” to the world or a fearsome icon of dread. This is France, why not the middle finger? Constructed in 1994, before the ubiquitous Facebook “LIKE” symbol, the colossal, rust-colored monument by the sculptor César Baldaccini, a faithful replica of his own thumb, or in French, “pouce,” is termed the “Le grand pouce La Défense.” I have come to know my two ordinary looking thumbs as “Rusty Thumbs,” which sounds better in French, “Le Pouce Rouillé.” However, just as “Green Thumbs” suggestive of causation, not expressive of the thumb’s color, mine are not rust colored. Others have referred to such deviant digits as “Numb Thumbs” or, when he was tinkering with telephones and typewriters, the humorist James Thurber, of “Walter Mitty” fame, identified his condition as “Dead Thumbs,” himself an unlucky, life-long victim, finally owning up to it in a New Yorker short story. The “Green Thumbs” that most of us are familiar with and envious of, can be described as the antithesis of “Rusty Thumbs,” in thumb parlance, when a person with a green one touches living plants they thrive, bloom, glow with life. Not so with the application of a rusty thumb to most anything with metal parts. There are no interventions possible; no twelve-step, two-step or even fifty-step programs to mitigate this malady; presumably, even amputation would not solve the problem. The disorder is usually kept secret by the ill-fated who start out in life as my mother describes, and just keep on “breaking things.” It is akin to a person who has never learned to swim, but cavalierly jumps in a lake. My thumbs have the unusual and unfortunate influence on anything with one or more metal parts that, soon after I touch it, it ceases operation, ultimately rusting. Despite a reluctant knowledge that I am challenged in this way, I go on using devices that I know will mean trouble, often blithely attempting to fix even those that ceased working because I touched them, like a lumberjack trying to repair a felled tree. Seeing “…some assembly required…” should terrorize me, but it never does. I forge ahead like a blind NASCAR driver. Always hoping for a normal result despite a handful of left-over parts, I am thankful I don’t make my living building IED’s. Inevitably, those who attempt to repair my rusting metal mechanical fatalities will say, in desperation, “I’ve never seen that before!” All international tech support staff of and the makers of my digital meat thermometer, all named “Clark,” are on my e mail Christmas card list. There is a timeworn anecdote about the hapless patient who tells his physician, “It hurts when I do this,” to which the doctor’s weary legendary advice is, “…then, don’t do that.” So, people to whom I relate my thumb challenges tell me, “Why don’t you stay away from mechanical things?” But our lives are metal-dependent, mechanized, digitized and electrified. Aside from walking, running, horses or camels, getting from here to there involves metal and moving parts. But, my car repair bills look like the original window MSRP sticker, inevitably accompanied by the mechanic’s head shaking, “…dunno, never seen that before!” Elevators often mysteriously jerk, slow down and then pass the floor I had selected as I keep punching the button, the other passengers thinking I did so after we passed it. I picture the elevator car flying through the roof or thudding to the bottom of the dark concrete shaft. Escalators and moving sidewalks shimmy and shake as if the gears and machinery will come to a grinding, squeaky stop before I can step off. Air travel? Nightmarish! From the baffling beeping of the TSA agent’s wand over my groin to the overhead compartment door on board that will not stay shut until the flight attendant disdainfully taps it closed. Once I get safely past takeoff, thinking I’m good to go, the familiar clunking and screeching begins below my feet after the landing gear has pulled up. On the more mundane

SUPER DOUBLE-CROSS – SX 2 By John J. Bradley To be released in 2025, the story of who put the SUPER in SUPERCROSS,  where he is now and why he’s there.  In 2007, Mike Goodwin was convicted of what can now be proven to have been false charges for allegedly orchestrating the 1988 murders of Mickey and Trudy Thompson. In that year, after highly publicized litigation, Thompson won a judgment against Goodwin of $794,000. Shortly after Goodwin lost his appeal, the Thompsons were gunned down in their driveway in Bradbury, L.A. County. Goodwin was initially viewed as a suspect but was essentially cleared as a suspect in December 1988 in a top-level report to the L.A. Sheriff that cited “no evidence linking Goodwin to the murders. 13 years later, in December 2001, Goodwin was arrested in Orange County seven days after he opened litigation against powerful politician Thompson’s sister on his Supercross business. Goodwin remained unlawfully in the Orange County Jail for 2½ years until the Fourth District Court of Appeals determined charges had been filed unlawfully, out-of-jurisdiction. The defense recently accessed evidence that had been illegally seized 22 years before, in 2001, via a false search warrant. The O.C. District Attorney, a cohort of Thompson’s sister, did not follow the required legal procedures to take jurisdiction from L.A., and L.A. did not follow those procedures to abdicate jurisdiction. The O.C. search and arrest affidavits were invalid because they had no probable cause.  The top prosecutor, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Pat Dixon, second only to the elected District Attorney Gil Garcetti, reviewed the evidence twice, indicating no charges would be filed in L.A. against Goodwin because of the “insufficiency of evidence.” However, when the Fourth District Court of Appeals dismissed the Orange County case and ruled that Goodwin be released from the Orange County jail immediately, Dixon’s office announced to the media that L.A. was filing murder charges against Goodwin because of “new evidence,” which was legally required for L.A.D.A. to file charges after the O.C. County dismissal. Learn about how Mike Goodwin created the sport of Supercross and how he tragically lost it. How he was wrongfully convicted and what is being done to get him out of prison. THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE Admin • May 24, 2024 • Blog • No Comments THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE The “presumption of guilt,” not innocence, tracks defendants throughout the system. Imagine law enforcement arresting those they “presumed … La Pouce Rouillé La Pouce Rouillé Admin • May 24, 2024 • Blog • No Comments La Pouce Rouillé It’s a RUSTY THUMB! “He always broke things, fer chrissakes!” my mother says with a disdainful flip of her … The BAGO Boy—Young Urban Pirate The BAGO Boy—Young Urban Pirate Admin • May 21, 2024 • Blog • No Comments The Bago Boy By John J. Bradley This novel novel chronicles how a 10-year-old boy, me, escaped the clutches of religious indoctrination … TOO MUCH INFORMATION TOO MUCH INFORMATION Admin • March 5, 2024 • Blog • No Comments TOO MUCH INFORMATION By John J. Bradley “Ya got a smokin’ deal there, m’ man!” and his hand rose above my head …

The Bago Boy By John J. Bradley This novel novel chronicles how a 10-year-old boy, me, escaped the clutches of religious indoctrination by becoming an urban pirate and making a movie of my adventures. My questions about dogma went unanswered, and I was punished for asking them by nuns in class and priestly “punishment in the rectory was much worse.  The novel is irreverent about religion but filled with humor and adventure; a young love story that delivers a surprising message about life, with an exciting conclusion to our urban pirate exploits on the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers in Philadelphia in the early 1950s. See what many who have read or listened to the book say, read or listen to samples at TheBagoBoy.com.https://johnbradley.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Bago-Boy-Animation.mp4Read or listen to a sample from the book and current reviews by many who have read the book, at TheBAGOBoy.com. Amazon Listen to a Sample The Bago Boy “We’re interested in learning more about our readers, Please comment.”) THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE Admin • May 24, 2024 • Blog • No Comments THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE The “presumption of guilt,” not innocence, tracks defendants throughout the system. Imagine law enforcement arresting those they “presumed … La Pouce Rouillé La Pouce Rouillé Admin • May 24, 2024 • Blog • No Comments La Pouce Rouillé It’s a RUSTY THUMB! “He always broke things, fer chrissakes!” my mother says with a disdainful flip of her … SUPER DOUBLE-CROSS – SX 2 SUPER DOUBLE-CROSS – SX 2 Admin • May 21, 2024 • Blog • No Comments SUPER DOUBLE-CROSS – SX 2 By John J. Bradley To be released in 2025, the story of who put the SUPER in … TOO MUCH INFORMATION TOO MUCH INFORMATION Admin • March 5, 2024 • Blog • No Comments TOO MUCH INFORMATION By John J. Bradley “Ya got a smokin’ deal there, m’ man!” and his hand rose above my head …

TOO MUCH INFORMATION By John J. Bradley “Ya got a smokin’ deal there, m’ man!” and his hand rose above my head and, in a sort of airplane glide, dived toward me, then up again in a kind of modified, bent-arm, Nazi salute. “Five?” he said, tilting his head in question. “Five?” he said, and I reached up, palm out, to meet his hand. His wide, toothpaste commercial smile blazed. He opened the driver’s door of the car I had just purchased, and I slid into my new American-made Honcho. I pushed the button to start it and was about to drive off when it started. On the inside of the windshield, projected somehow, with one of those heads-up displays, semiopaque letters used in fighter jets, scrolling up like the credits at the opening of STAR WARS, gray words: GRAND COMANCHERO, LIMITED Invincible Motors Corporation, HUSKY MACHO Division Armando Fratrachelli, President “What’s this?” I said, but the door was closed, so I had asked myself. BODY BY D. PRATON, MASTARANI DESIGN Exterior Design Enhancements, Trim & Accouterments by Holliseeter-Forbes Design Group & Good Buddies “Hey,” I yelled as the window slid down. “Hey! What’s this?” I pointed to the windshield where more words were scrolling up. Fleximount Mirrors by ORIGINAL FLEX-O-IMAGE CORP. Fabrics, Coverings & Interior Accessories by ISABELLA FRANSOLINI-EllIS-CHARLSTON of Milan Driver’s Side Airbag by Tunisian Plastic Weavers & Glass Blowing Tires by THE BLIMP TIRE COMPANY “What’s what?” the salesman replied. “This stuff scrolling down here.” I pointed to the inside of the windshield. “Why, that’s a brand-new feature,” he said loudly enough for all to hear. “Gives you thenames of some of those involved with putting this beauty together,” he raised his head proudlyand touched the fender with the tip of his finger, like God in Michaelangelo’s “Creation of Adam,”painting. “Gives them real pride in their work; gives them the recognition they deserve forbuilding this automotive achievement!” “So, every time I start this thing, I’ll have to read the name of the person who tightenedthe lug nuts before I can drive?” Smile undiminished, he said, “It’s a reminder of the excellence you purchased. It’s partof our new value-plus platinum plan. It’s free and our researchers designed it so you’ll get usedto it in no time. You look through it, see, like those fighter pilots do.” He reached over, wavinghis hand in front of the windshield. “Gotta run!” he said as he turned and hurried off toward theshowroom. What the–, I thought. Words continued rolling up and then stopped. How could I get ridof this? The owner’s manual or Google. I’d figure out how to turn it off. But how did it get started? Huh! I knew! Hollywood. And I was partly to blame. I sat therein the theater and in front of the TV silently as they kept adding names and titles to the list ofcredits at the start of films and TV shows until now; we have to view nearly half the movie orshow through strange names and titles, Co-Executive Producer, Associate Assistant to The CoExecutive Director, Casting, a dozen regular Producers, Musical Score, Animal Wranglers,Story Writer, Screenplay Writer, Funniest Person on Set, Van driver, ad infinitum. At first, there was only the name of the movie, its title, what notables were in it, aproducer, writer, director, period. Then, because moviemakers, in negotiating pay toparticipants in the film, gave prominent “head or opening credits,” instead of money. Then it gotout of hand. A lot of those names that used to scroll down after the film have moved up to thefront because everyone knows the only people who see the names at the end of the film arethose people whose names are in the credits. I’m forming a group, ACA, Anti-Credits Alliance, before the guy at the Chevron who fixedthe flat on the crew bus gets a head credit, instead of being paid. THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE Admin • May 24, 2024 • Blog • No Comments THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE The “presumption of guilt,” not innocence, tracks defendants throughout the system. Imagine law enforcement arresting those they “presumed … La Pouce Rouillé La Pouce Rouillé Admin • May 24, 2024 • Blog • No Comments La Pouce Rouillé It’s a RUSTY THUMB! “He always broke things, fer chrissakes!” my mother says with a disdainful flip of her … SUPER DOUBLE-CROSS – SX 2 SUPER DOUBLE-CROSS – SX 2 Admin • May 21, 2024 • Blog • No Comments SUPER DOUBLE-CROSS – SX 2 By John J. Bradley To be released in 2025, the story of who put the SUPER in … The BAGO Boy—Young Urban Pirate The BAGO Boy—Young Urban Pirate Admin • May 21, 2024 • Blog • No Comments The Bago Boy By John J. Bradley This novel novel chronicles how a 10-year-old boy, me, escaped the clutches of religious indoctrination …

BROKEN JUSTICE Justice is not just blind, it is brain dead. THE CSI EFFECT:  A relatively new problem with justice in America has recently emerged. Most of what the public knows about the legal system comes from media reporting and the pseudo documentaries that purport to depict law enforcement realistically. Known collectively as the “CSI Effect,” the phenomenon affects not only trials but also the public’s perception of what happens in criminal investigations. Simply put, “It just ain’t so.” The altruism we see in Cold Case Files; the intense investigation we see on CSI, SVU; the reluctance of prosecutors and judges to pervert the legal system we see in “Law and Order” is “creative license” taken by teleplay writers and it is what should happen, but rarely does. Legal professionals are concerned at the heavy influence of these semi fictional dramatic presentations on the outcome of trials where “CSI expert” juries base their verdicts on their own “forensic evaluations” of the evidence. In effect, jurors who rely on the “expertise” acquired by viewing TV crime programs are overruling the expert forensic witnesses. Courts, though they should, rarely instruct juries to disregard their “TV crime busting experience,” fanciful at best, when reaching a verdict. Below are highlights of some of other, much more serious, flaws in the system that Justice On Trial, using contributions and grants, hopes to offer suggestions, and lobby for legislation, to improve. 1. THE IRRELEVANCE OF INNOCENCE: The “presumption of guilt,” not innocence, tracks defendants throughout the system. Imagine law enforcement arresting those they “presumed innocent.” In virtually all arrests, law enforcement makes a “prophecy of guilt,” early on, then ‘develops” appropriate evidence to prosecute and convict. (See the 2002 feature film, with Al Pacino, Hillary Swank, Robin Williams, “Insomnia” for a realistic depiction of this law enforcement mindset with truly disastrous results. Also read Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Humes’ “Mean Justice” to see how rampant, and dangerous, this can be in a community where it is nurtured, unchecked.) The courts support prosecution for conviction, not exoneration. Prosecutors are paid to convict, not acquit. Most judges are former prosecutors and are not, as is the common misconception, neutral “referees” leaning in favor of protecting defendants’ rights. Can you imagine a trial where prosecutors actually presented exculpatory evidence, which, by the way, the law prescribes? 2. ARREST WITHOUT EVIDENCE: Officials can and do arrest on no, or flawed, even fabricated, evidence. Affidavits are sworn, under penalty of perjury, so judges, relying upon the honesty of law enforcement and prosecutors, approve such documents without corroboration. Judges are unable to verify evidence in a “sworn officer’s” affidavit. There are evidentiary requirements for arrest, search and seizure and preliminary hearings. However, they are based upon the premise that officers of the law and courts will rise to these standards of law, voluntarily, accurately and truthfully. Some do not. Frequently, in cases where there is little or no evidence, the “instincts and experience” of law enforcement point them to a suspect early in the investigation. To validate these de facto “declarations of guilt,” officers and/or prosecutors “fudge” evidence to arrest and prosecute so conviction becomes, in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy of guilt. Officials “amplify” weak evidence; falsify forensics that would be difficult for the defense to verify; manipulate witness testimony; avoid investigation of other suspects, and withhold exculpatory evidence to strengthen the case and validate that prophecy of guilt. Once this declaration is made, officials rarely admit malfeasance or incompetence, even if evidence is developed exonerating the defendant. Prosecutors are often reluctant to reverse their convictions even when presented with incontrovertible DNA or other evidence, exonerating a convicted defendant. 3. YEARS OF INCARCERATION WITH NO TRIAL: Routinely, defendants, many who present no danger or the very remote possibility of flight, are held without bail or unaffordable bail, for years. “Speedy trial” is another fallacy of the American Judicial system. The more serious the crime alleged, the longer it will take the defense to prepare for trial. A current was in jail for thirty months without trial before the case was dismissed. With the assistance of Justice On Trial, a motion to dismiss was filed and the case was ultimately dismissed. The defendant served a total of 30 months without having been convicted or ever having a trial. Unfortunately, this case is not unique. 4. MYTH OF INCREASED CONVICTION/DECREASED CRIME RATE: Statistics, like holograms, look a little different from every angle. About 85% of “convictions” in the U.S. are not really convictions at all. Ostensibly, to save the courts’ time and money, in collaboration with law enforcement, prosecutors “over-charge” defendants. That is, in the majority of criminal cases, the defendant is charged with more serious crimes than there is evidence to support. Law enforcement then persuades the defendant: That sufficient evidence does exist, when most often it does not; that he will be charged and almost certainly convicted with a long sentence. If he goes to trial it could take years (it will) and, should he lose and appeal, he could spend many years in jail (he would) and still be sentenced at the highest end of the sentencing standard, without “time served” being counted because he was uncooperative by not accepting the plea bargain. Then, for a the hapless defendant’s admission of guilt, regardless of claims of innocence, he will be offered the opportunity to plea to a lesser offence, carrying a lighter sentence, usually with “time served” counted. This is a “Plea Bargain,” not a conviction; defendants waive their right to a trial. Therefore, without a trial, and to avoid extra years in jail, many of whom claim innocence accept such plea-bargains. In fact, many of the serious crimes that are plea-bargained have not really been solved. Countless defendants, later proven innocent, had accepted negotiated convictions. Estimates by legal professionals run to 10% or more wrongfully convicted and advocacy organizations such as Innocence Project have exonerated hundreds. Tragically, when an innocent person accepts a plea-bargain, the criminals who actually committed