[0:00]
Most Americans recognize that their country has a problem with mass incarc3rat!0n. The United States makes up just 5% of the world's population, but it incarc3rat3s more than 25% of the world's pr!s0ners, which amounts to over 2 million people in our ja!1s and pr!s0ns. Over 426,000 people in ja!1 in the United States today are being detained pretrial, which means they are ‼️legally innocent‼️ Many are ja!13d pretrial simply because they can't afford money bail, or because a probation, 
[0:30]
par0le, or 🧊 office, for example, has placed a hold on their release. What few appreciate, however, is the role that plea bargaining has played in transforming our cr!m!nal justice system into little more than a c0nvict!0n machine. Thanks in part to plea bargains, millions of Americans have a cr!m!na1 record— The number of Americans, in fact, with criminal records today is larger than the entire U.S. population in 1900. The common narrative in popular culture is that cr!m!na1 justice is meted out before juries 
[1:00]
in courtrooms around the country— In fact, cr!m!nal trials are rare. 🚨98% of cr!m!nal cases in the federal courts end with a plea bargain, an informal and unregulated process by which prosecutors and defense counsel negotiate charging and sentencing concessions in exchange for guilty pleas *and* waivers of constitutionally guaranteed trial rights. That is why 🚨fewer than 1%🚨 of federal cr!m!nal defendants were acquitted in 2022. That is 290 of 71,954 defendants. 
[1:34]
An “acquittal” in that case means a defendant went to trial and was found “not guilty,” so you can imagine, most people do not. In the olden days, the more primitive days, t0rtur3 would be employed by state actors to coerce an accused person into confessing or pointing the finger at someone else— ⏭️Skip ahead to the 21st century in America, and the only thing that has changed is the *mechanism* by which coercive pressure is applied to induce compliance. Instead of piling boulders onto the accused, modern prosecutors pile charges 
[2:06]
with the discretionary power to increase your sentence tenfold simply for refusing to plead guilty. And while t0rtur3 is no longer a permissible method of inducing guilty pleas in America's cr!m!nal justice system, just about everything else *is*. This includes pretrial d3t3ntion for offenses that *DO NOT* warrant it— You are being detained before trial ✨simply because✨ you cannot pay your bail. And for a poor defendant, their lack of finances becomes intimately intertwined with their liberty almost immediately. Pretrial d3t3nt!on increases a person's likelihood 
[2:38]
of pleading guilty by 46%⚠️‼️ Detained people who may have limited knowledge of the cr!m!nal legal system and/or who are being detained for the ✨very first time✨ have strong incentives to cut a quick deal in order to resolve their cases as soon as possible, *especially* when it involves lower-stakes petty offenses. Being in ja!1 prevents you from working, making an income, supporting your family, taking care of your kids, your pets, etcetera. Pretrial d3tenti0n is essentially used to coerce you to agree to whatever you can 
[3:08]
to be released as soon as possible and get back to your life. When you are factually innocent, a plea deal gives you certainty in what can be a long and unpredictable cr!m!nal legal process, or sidestep the possibility of harsher punishment ‼️simply because you want to go to trial.‼️ As one law professor put it, quote, “Our existing legal system places the risk of going to trial,” “and in some cases, even being charged with a cr!m3,” “so high, that innocence and guilt” “no longer become the real considerations.” Nevertheless, the odds of receiving a plea offer that 
[3:40]
⛔️includes !ncarc3rat!0n⛔️ are almost 70% greater for B1ack people than wh!te people. While many Americans may believe they themselves will never face a cr!m!na1 investigation, in fact, one in three of you— of Americans, all Americans in this country, will have a cr!m!na1 record at some point in their lives. The percentage of innocent people who plead guilty to federal cr!m3s in federal court because of extraneous factors that have ‼️nothing to do‼️ with their actual guilt or innocence is impossible to adequately quantify, 
[4:10]
but even more impossible to ignore… …But today we have the privilege to speak with someone who knows all too well how these issues impact the lives of real people!!! Everyone watching or listening to this episode has the very rare and very priceless opportunity to hear from Hannah Bogan, a deputy federal public defender from the Federal Public Defender's office in Los Angeles. Their Office made national headlines earlier this year for achieving an unprecedented winning streak against the Trmp administration since the DOJ and their U.S. Attorneys 
[4:41]
began an aggressive and politically motivated campaign to d3ta!n and prosecute protesters, immigrants, and dissidents in federal court nationwide. Those are just a few of Hannah Bogan's clients⚖️ She is here today on Rebuttal as my colleague, my friend, my confidant, and one of my very early inspirations as a lawyer in this field🫂