Plea bargaining -the ultimate fraud.

 The following is an excerpt from Part Two:



In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
—Thomas Jefferson

Sid and I have lived our entire lives based on this outlook. When we were first thrown in the clink, we concurred that copping a plea would be absolutely out of the question. Our wholehearted intention was to have a trial by jury and to defend our innocence. We both informed our lawyers not to bother bringing us a plea offer. That was before we spent all those months in “Alcatraz revisited.”

Following the mistrial, the judge presents us a plea agreement. “Are you signing this of your own free will?”

“Yes, your honor.” The situation is exactly like asking the question with a blade to our throats. There is no other conceivable answer except for someone with a death wish. Although the nolo plea to illegitimate conditions of release is ridiculous, it delivers us from an even greater, life-threatening evil—we had been assured by several inmates that murder was imminent.