Biden DOJ's 'overcharging,' partisan targeting shows 'we have just lost our damn minds': critics

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FIRST ON FOX: With a staggering 99.6% success rate in court, some federal investigations under the Biden administration's Department of Justice (DOJ) are drawing scrutiny for alleged partisan bias and the little-known problem of overcharging — fueling calls for urgent reform among experts.

"We have just lost our damn minds when it comes to criminal prosecution," healthcare defense attorney Ron Chapman told Fox News Digital in an interview. "Ninety-five percent of cases do not go to trial, because prosecutors can find fuzzy statutes to get such high maximums or even mandatory minimums at play, which force innocent people to plead guilty. And that's what we're dealing with — we're dealing with tons of innocent people who may not be innocent of all the crimes, but they're innocent of the ones that were overcharged against them."

Prosecutors commonly charge additional felonies to pressure guilty pleas, Chapman said, which is denounced by the American Bar Association for violating defendants' fair trial rights. Federal prosecutors have a 99.6% conviction rate, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center study. As such, federal investigations result in more pleas and avoid trials altogether.

This week, a Texas doctor was charged by the DOJ with four felonies after exposing the hospital he worked in for allegedly secretly conducting transgender surgical procedures