In all, a whopping 97 percent of defendants plead guilty — no surprise, says author Jamie Fellner, given the enormous and essentially unchecked power that federal prosecutors wield. Last year, drug defendants in federal cases who went to trial and lost were sentenced to more than three times as many years in prison as those who took a plea, according to the report’s analysis of data from the United States Sentencing Commission, a government agency. Our original post continues: 
 
 In August, Attorney General Eric Holder told federal prosecutors not to hit low-level drug offenders with charges that carry mandatory minimum sentences, part of an effort to reduce U.S. incarceration levels, to reorient the criminal justice system toward violent criminals, and to become more "smart" on crime. “Prosecutors can say, ‘Take these 10 years or, if you get a trial and are convicted, you’re going to look at life,’” said Fellner, an attorney who specializes in criminal justice issues at Human Rights Watch. And Fellner said she already has found some cases where the Justice Department appeared to do just that.
– Defendants in federal drug cases are getting unfairly sentenced, thanks to mandatory minimums and unchecked power wielded by the Justice Department, according to a Human Rights Watch report. Prosecutors basically "force" defendants into pleading guilty with threats of lengthy sentences and stacked-up charges if the case goes to trial, the study states. "Prosecutors can say, 'Take these 10 years or, if you get a trial and are convicted, you're going to look at life," study author Jamie Fellner tells the Huffington Post. "That's a pretty amazing power that unfortunately they are more than willing to wield." Just 3% of cases went to trial last year, and of those, 89% of defendants lost. On average, they were given an extra 11 years in prison compared with those who took a plea deal, NPR reports. In one case, a 53-year-old woman with no prior convictions was given "effectively a life sentence" of 45 years for dealing meth and having guns in her house; she had refused a plea deal of 17 years. "When you have innocent people tempted and also maybe pleading guilty just to avoid the possibility of a really long sentence, that doesn't give you a whole lot of faith in the integrity of the system," Fellner says. As for Eric Holder's promised reform: Fellner says she's already found cases where prosecutors have failed to take his advice.