What is the true value of life?
Imagine for a moment a homeless man living with mental retardation panhandling at a city park; suddenly rush upon by three burly police officers. He is wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and thrown in the back of the squad car. There is an eerie silence all the way to the station until he is thrust into a dimly lit room, handcuffed to the wall and beaten until he confesses to a rape/murder that he knows nothing about. His defense council is haggard overworked public defenders whose sense of compassion, urgency and investigative dexterity dulled and stymied by a tight budget and triple the workload of the average public defender. His tortuous ordeal continues, for now he has to avoid being a victim in the prison system where gang rape and stabbings are a fact of prison life, while he waits the two to four years for his case to come to trial. The man cannot prove his innocence and has no money to hire private investigators or attorneys to plead his case, and as a result, the defendant is
