One of the things that scares me about the US criminal justice system is that it relies almost entirely on magical thinking and torture to secure convictions. I don’t believe anyone is guilty unless they were literally photographed holding the bloody knife while standing over the body and even then I’ll need some convincing to rule out potential mitigating circumstances.
Something like 90% of solved murder cases involve either the cops catching the suspect standing over the body or there’s enough circumstantial evidence the suspect admits guilt.
Or they browbeat someone into pleading guilty by threatening to execute them if they keep insisting they are innocent.
Yeah, something like 99% of federal cases result in convictions, which is really easy to do when you just pick someone to accuse and say “If you confess you get 3 years and probation, if you don’t confess you’ll die in a concrete box.”