Survivors Guide to Prison Page #5

being in solitary confinement

for more than two years,

which is an extremely long

period of time.

But in California

and Pelican Bay State prison,

the average time

is seven and a half years.

[Susan] For two years, Bruce had

been waiting for his trial.

He'd gone over it in his head

day after day

what the judge would say,

what a jury would think.

When they heard

the transcript

of Detective Monsue's

interrogation of Mike Ryan,

that's all they'd need to hear.

All the lies,

all the inconsistencies,

there would be no way

he wouldn't be found innocent.

Except the prosecutor

filed a motion to deny Bruce

the right to make any mention

of Mike Ryan's name

at the trial.

[Bruce] On the grounds that we

couldn't tie Mike Ryan to the crime.

The judge turns to my attorney,

"What evidence do you have

that Mike Ryan is tied to this?"

He says, "He was in the county.

He could have done it."

And the judge goes,

"Is that all you have?"

Because he didn't take the time

to read the transcript.

He was just on autopilot.

He was not paying attention.

He wasn't engaged.

He says, "Yeah,

that's it, that's all I have."

We couldn't tie Mike Ryan

to the crime.

That was the framework

for my trial.

It is an absolute joke

the resources

prosecutors have

versus defense attorneys.

[Matthew] Justin Brooks

is the director

of the California Innocence

Project,

a nonprofit group dedicated

to helping

wrongfully convicted Americans

get out of prison.

Prosecutors have a police force

at their disposal

as their investigators.

They're... they get the case

from the first moment

it's being investigated.

They have access

to all the people

who are involved in that.

Defense comes late to the date.

We are at a total disadvantage.

The sixth amendment

to the U.S. Constitution

is supposed to guarantee

the right to effective counsel.

But as we're seeing in America,

you have to buy your rights.

You're more likely to walk free

if you're rich and guilty

then you are if you're poor

and innocent.

[Bruce] The evidence is Detective

Monsue telling his lies,

Robert Hughes telling his lies,

and no alternate suspect.

And so I'm screwed.

They're charging me

with first-degree murder,

which carries 26 years to life

in state prison.

It's longer

than I'd been alive.

A day and a half in,

my attorney comes to me

in the holding tank and says,

"The judge is willing

to entertain a guilty plea

in exchange for

a youth authority sentence."

I talk with my dad, I said,

"Guilty plea, what...

you know, I'm not going to take

a guilty plea."

And he said, "I... I hear you."

And a close friend of my...

of the family,

my father's best friend,

comes to the juvenile hall

and says, "You have to...

you have to accept this plea."

I said, "No, I'm not going to

accept anything.

I didn't do anything.

I'm not gonna you know..."

And he says, "Look,"

and he pounds his hand down

on the bench

that we're sitting on,

and he goes, "They are going

to convict you

of first f***ing degree murder

unless you plead guilty."

And he's practically crying,

as am I right now.

He goes, "Look, do whatever

you have to do to get home."

You are the law.

The defendant is not guilty.

No man is above the law.

What we see on most TV shows

is not reality.

Our justice system

isn't what you think it is.

[Matthew]

Rolling Stone magazine

considers Wayne Kramer

of The MC5

one of the top 100 greatest

guitarists of all time.

He battled drug addiction

and in 1975,

went to prison for two years

for selling cocaine.

He's since provided guitars

and taught music

to inmates at over 50

correctional institutions

throughout the United States.

People think that,

you know,

you have a right to a trial

and everybody goes to trial

and there's the good prosecutor

and the defense attorney,

and they battle it out.

That ain't the way it works.

The way it works

is the prosecutors

stack up the charges on you

and force you to plead guilty

to a lesser charge to keep

from doing life

or double life or triple life.

People don't get trials.

What they get is a deal.

People suggest that anywhere

between, you know,

three or 10 and 15%

of people behind bars

could be innocent of the crimes

of which they were charged.

Michelle Alexander

is a civil rights lawyer,

Stanford law professor and

the author of The New Jim Crow,

one of the most highly

acclaimed studies

of America's

criminal justice system.

The reality is, is that

thousands of people

every year

in the United States

wind up pleading guilty

to crimes

they may not have committed

because they are

either railroaded

by police officers who give them

false information

or coerce confessions

or because they were afraid

of facing, you know, harsh

mandatory minimum sentences

and believe that, you know,

their best chance

is to just take a plea.

You're an average Joe.

You don't know anything about,

the prison,

the politics in county jail.

You don't know anything.

So they put you there

with these people,

and this is how they force you

to take deals, you know.

You're around people that you

see on the news that are,

"Oh, those are horrible people,

and the same guy

you just saw on the news

is your bunkie.

Of course

you're gonna take a deal.

Get me away from these people.

This is the system.

This is what they do to you.

They understand that

if we put this guy in here,

if you did it or not,

it doesn't even matter

because you're looking

at the end result.

I can't take another f***ing day

in this place.

Whatever you say, I'll do.

So just let me out.

Once you're arrested

and charged with a crime,

understand you will be taking

a plea bargain

nine out of 10 times.

You have to.

The system is against you.

The US justice system isn't

like any justice system

in the world,

a system where 95% of the cases

are resolved by plea bargain.

You know,

it's no longer a trial system.

It's a plea bargain system.

If the enormous percentage

of defendants

who plead guilty

suddenly one day said,

"We're not pleading guilty,"

the system

would grind to a halt.

The court system

does not have the capacity

for the current number

of defendants

that are passing through it.

The whole purpose

of plea bargains

from the perspective

of a prosecutor

raises his conviction rate.

So prosecutors

typically have

in the high-90 percentile

conviction rates,

including those plea bargains

because of course,

from a legal standpoint,

we know that nobody

would ever plead guilty

to something they didn't do.

And so, we agreed

that I would plead guilty

in exchange for

a youth authority sentence.

We went back into trial,

we entered the plea,

and I went down

for a 90-day observation

at the youth authority

in Norwalk.

The challenge is

if you're innocent

and you plead guilty,

you better be a good liar.

You go down there,

you talk to psychologists,

and they ask you,

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