another way that a defendant can be denied a right to a trial

There is a defendant facing two criminal charges. Based on the evidence, both charges could apply, but the second charge is kind of excessive. The defendant believes they have a decent chance of being found not guilt on the first charge if it went to a jury. But in order to make the second charge go away, the defendant takes a plea bargain from the prosecutor agreeing to plead guilty to the first charge.

However, some time later, an investigator hired by the defendant's defense team comes up with new evidence that proves the defendant was not guilty of the second charge.

What happened? The defendant has forfeited the right to a trial, when they had a good chance of being found not guilty.

An appeals court is not going to overturn the conviction for the first charge, because there is still moderate evidence the defendant might be guilty of that crime. Even though the defendant might have a 60% chance of being found not guilty if it went to trial.

Imagine if the evidence for the second charge was intentionally planted by some corrupt law enforcement officer. Even if it can later be proved with certainty that evidence was planted there by somebody else, that has still caused the defendant to lose the right to a trial for the first charge.

That might even be the reason why the fake evidence was planted. Because some police detective believed the suspect was guilty of the first crime but knew the evidence was not very good and there was a high chance it would not be enough to convict them. So evidence was planted to try to help make sure the suspect would go to prison.

This is just another illustration of the unfair nature of plea bargains, and how the system can not always be fair in some situations.

 

true, sometimes the inmates have no victims, sometimes they are the victims...

http://www.forejustice.org/wc/ray_krone_JD_vol2_i9.htm