Decarceration Nation (with Josh and Joel): Episode 6 "Plea Bargains"

Decarceration Nation Podcast (with Josh and Joel)

Welcome to the new podcast "Decarceration Nation" which I am co-hosting with my friend Joel.

We will be focusing on the need for serious criminal justice reform and prison reform. We attempt to answer the question, do we want to live in an Incarcerated Nation or create a Decarceration Nation.

This week we discussed the problems with Plea Bargaining.

I always mention my book "Writing Your Own Best Story: Addiction + Living Hope," not because I make lots of money from it (I think all told I have made about $300 total dollars from writing it). I talk about it because I wrote it to help people not make the same mistakes I made (hence why I keep the price very low). Whenever anyone has written and asked for a copy but couldn't afford it I have sent them a PDF copy.

My friend Aaron's outreach organization is called "A Brighter Way" and the organization we both are members of is called Nation Outside. 

My friend Aaron's organization is called "A Brighter Way" and we are also both involved with Michigan's Nation Outside.

The Judge Rakoff quote was found in this New York Review of Books article.

A Few Good Men was an American drama about a lawyer fighting the court-martial of two Guantanamo Bay Marines starring Tom Cruise and Demi Moore.

The Judge John Kane quote was from this Marshall Project article about Plea Bargaining and innocence.

Michelle Alexander is the author of the very influential and popular book, "The New Jim Crow."

There is a lot of evidence about why Innocent People Accept Plea Bargains. The Marshall Project piece above is a good summary. We also mention this article from the Atlantic Monthly several times during the podcast.

Professor Jenia Turner's quote comes from her extensive article on plea bargaining.

Most of the alternatives that we discuss come from the following articles:

Cynthia Alkon's Law Review Article, John Rappaport's article on unbundling rights, and the other articles cited above.

There is some good information that we used in the research for this episode in this article about race and plea bargaining. 

You can subscribe to Decarceration Nation from iTunes or Stitcher or anywhere podcasts are aggregated (and if you like the Pod please leave ratings and reviews).

If you want to support the Decarceration Nation podcast, become go to my Patreon page and sign up for being a Decarceration Nation-Builder (kind of corny, I know). Running the podcast costs us money, so every dollar helps us get the news out about what needs to change in our criminal justice system.

Thanks for listening, next week will be an episode about Pre-Sentencing Investigations and Indigent Defense.