"In trying to talk prosecutors out of weak cases, I have been told more than once, 'I wasn’t there, man, and neither were you. Let the 12 of them figure it out.'"

Writes Scott Turow (in an op-ed about Dominique Strauss-Kahn):

In practice, this means that even defendants who are probably innocent must endure the anguish of trial. I once represented a young man in a gang murder case who had been arrested and indicted along with eight other people, even though his name was never mentioned in the grand jury testimony. Although it seemed clear that the police had mistaken this young man for his brother, both the prosecutors and the judge told me to “put it on,” meaning go to trial; the client sat in court for several days, in jeopardy of a lengthy prison term, before the case against him was finally dismissed.