Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Criminal Law

: The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Boston Globe Editorial: "Confession isn't the only factor"

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Globe Editorial The Boston Globe Confession isn?t the only factor June 27, 2010 HIS CLAIMS of innocence may well be false, but the case of convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer nevertheless highlights a flaw in the Massachusetts parole system: Even though state law doesn?t require a prisoner to admit to his crime as a condition of early release, current practice effectively does. As a result, the justice system leaves itself open to the possibility of keeping an innocent person in prison merely because he refuses to confess to a crime he didn?t commit. LaGuer is hardly an ideal symbol for this problem. In 1984, he was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 15 years for the brutal rape of a neighbor. He has now served some 27 years in prison, insisting on his innocence all the while, and for a time his continued imprisonment was a cause célèbre...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on June 27, 2010 (boomark / email).