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To the Editor:

In “Jury Trials Vanish, and Justice Is Served Behind Closed Doors” (front page, Aug. 8), Frederick P. Hafetz, a defense lawyer, rightly notes that jury trials are supposed to serve as a check against prosecutorial power. That check is in danger of failing.

 We have documented the many tools that federal prosecutors use to push drug defendants to forgo trial and plead guilty. They include threats to transform 10-year mandatory minimum sentences into life sentences based on a person’s prior convictions for minor drug offenses — discretion that lies completely in the hands of the prosecutor.

Congress is considering sentencing reform that would restrict some of the excesses of these so-called sentencing enhancements. Yet these efforts would simply shorten the enhancements’ length, not eliminate them, as well as add new crimes that could trigger them.

Not being compelled to confess guilt is a human right. When a prosecutor can legally threaten a life sentence for a drug crime, the specter of coercion looms large.

ANTONIO M. GINATTA

Washington

The writer is advocacy director of the United States Program at Human Rights Watch

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