Manuel Velez was convicted of murder because [ the public defender didn't bother to investigate the evidence that proved he was innocent ]( http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2014/10/08/innocent-man-released-prison-after-nine-years-four-death-row ) . The cruel prosecutors gave him a choice between a new trial (on charges already known to be false), which would probably have meant keeping him in jail for a year or two, and pleading guilty to a smaller false charge. Evidently they are more interested in pretending they are never wrong than in justice. The main cause of these repeated injustices is that we don't have enough public defenders in the US. They can't possibly do a proper job for so many clients. Most of the time they advise clients to make a deal and accept a lesser charge, whether it is true or not.
Ссылка: https://stallman.org/archives/2014-jul-oct.html#12_October_2014_%28Public_defense_failure%29