Retired Judge Richard Posner's interview: only 1% of criminal cases in federal courts are tried

In early March of this year, a large interview was published with the retired federal appellate judge Richard Posner.

The interview contains so many interesting (including outrageous) revelations that it is worth dedicating it a whole series of blog articles.

I will start with statistics of trials in criminal cases in federal courts that retired Judge Posner revealed - only after he stepped off the bench, of course.

It is 1%.

99% of people locked up in federal prisons are put there without any trial and without any verification of their guilt or innocence - simply by browbeating people to plead guilty and accept some prison time to avoid the threat of more prison time if they go to trial and lose, which is a given if the quality of legal defense to the indigent is taken into consideration.

So, wrongful convictions are fabricated en masse by threats that were made possible because of maximum sentences in the mandatory sentencing guidelines introduced under the "democratic" President Bill Clinton.  To say that we have just narrowly avoided another 1 or 2 Clinton terms, and people were crying in the streets about it and some cannot stop crying until now.