Right after I finish shouting into the wind and shaking my fist at the sky.

So you consider the Spanish Inquisition to be nearly a utopia? Now I understand your position better!

I'm not inclined to accept confession as evidence at all. When a person "confesses" to a court there is very high likelihood and risk that they have done so under some form of duress. If the prosecution has no case other than a confession, then they simply have no case. I have heard the law indeed operates this way in some of the European states.

True, the 97% "confession" rate doesn't tell us whether or not we're a Stalinist tyranny. But it's solid prima facie evidence of some variant of tyranny.

Also, no sane person would willingly subject themselves to a lifetime of torture in the gulags. To do so would itself call into doubt their sanity. Not sure what you were smoking when you wrote that.

A 97% "confession" rate is something straight out of a Stalinist tyranny. This is a political value judgement - that's NOT the society I want to live in.

The 92% guilty rate is not the interesting part. Rather what strikes me is that 97% of the "guilty" have "confessed".

There is no such thing as a legitimate coerced confession ("plea bargain"), the very concept is antithetical to most ideas of justice.

As for your factual questions, I encourage you to poke around the linked US Attorney's Statistical Report. It may be an official gubmint publication, but it doesn't paint a pretty picture.

I am not here asserting what is the "right" conviction rate. Rather I simply assert that our American system of coerced false confession is patently unjust and immoral.

The US kangaroo courts operate on a principal of coerced false confession. The oppressive multitude of petty laws is used to heavily over-charge defendants. They are then offered the choice of "confessing" or spending the rest of their life in the hellish sensory deprivation torture chambers of the American gulag.

Consider that "of the 82,092 defendants terminated during Fiscal Year 2013, 75,718, or 92 percent, either pled guilty or were found guilty" and "during Fiscal Year 2013, a total of 73,397, or 97 percent,of all convicted defendants pled guilty prior to or during trial." Source: United States Attorneys' Statistical Report 2013 Only 3% of federal prisoners were convicted by an actual trial!

That someone plead guilty at an American trial is no more damming than if they had farted.

Even if the persecutor's allegations are to be believed, this young man has done no harm to anyone. He deserves no punishment at all. To threaten an ethically innocent man with decades or life in the hellish sensory deprivation torture chambers of the Gulag is itself a criminal act.

The federal agents involved should be fired and possibly jailed. (Nuremberg defense may apply to lower level goons.) The budget of their agency should be slashed, as they clearly have more agents than valid uses for them.

Fish found to be good at swimming! News at 11!

Damn straight - only people with $$ deserve to have fun!

Bart and Caltrain stations in broad daylight have always worked well for me. Same goes for major public transit facilities in any city. Granted my transactions tend to be limited to computer hardware and automobiles.

Don't think I'd feel comfortable meeting someone at a pig fortress, just to buy/sell a laptop. Adds unnecessary risk to otherwise routine business.

FTFY

No one actually believes these numbers are an accurate representation of public opinion.... right?

Violent Purtians vs insensitive clods - loads of fun, but best watched from a considerable distance.

"Pardon me - does this train go to the airport?"