4 ms·

What I don't understand is, that the two young persons didn't choose to say: f*uck you, stupid law, we won't strike a plea. You.are.nuts! Is the pressure in th

What I don't understand is, that the two young persons didn't choose to say: f*uck you, stupid law, we won't strike a plea. You.are.nuts! Is the pressure in the US that strong that a sane person 'just has to do this'?

minimaxir 11y ago
While the case may be incredibly weak, the defendant may still be unable to fight it due to other factors (most notably cost and time), and therefore take the plea instead. Lawyers are expensive everywhere. Generally, refusing a plea deal for ideological reasons is not a smart legal strategy.
- leaveyou 11y ago
  Why are lawyers expensive everywhere ? Demand and supply does not apply to them ?
  - minimaxir 11y ago
    Less of a supply/demand microeconomic reason, more of a willingness-to-pay rationale (i.e. if you are at risk of going to jail, you'll pay ANYTHING to avoid it, and lawyers charge accordingly).
    - leaveyou 11y ago
      It's kind of paradoxical that people would rather accept unfavorable pleas because they don't want to/can't pay anything.. and the lawyers are still expensive..
  - ma2rten 11y ago
    I think s/he means lawyers are expensive everywhere in the US. I never heard of someone going bankrupt in Europe for defending themselves so I researched it. In Germany there are fixed prices that lawyers can charge.
  - tsotha 11y ago
    The chart for legal salaries has two big lobes: a small sharp one at the very high end and a huge one at the low end. The last time I looked a brand new JD from an unexceptional law school was looking at a starting salary of somewhere in the mid $40k range. So as professionals go, lawyers aren't that expensive (assuming you're not hiring from Harvard). But running a law office is expensive. You're going to have idle "legal capacity" which has has to be paid for by the clients you do get.
- chappi42 11y ago
  Aren't there lawyers without cost? (German: Pflichtverteidiger - maybe: assigned counsel). How is a 16 year old supposed to pay for a lawyer?
  - tbrownaw 11y ago
    There are supposed to be (public defenders), but they tend to be wildly underfunded and overworked.
  - ma2rten 11y ago
    There are. It's called public defender, but they are often overworked because they don't have sufficient budget. This means they will suggest most of their defendants to take a plea bargin and not take the risk of going to trail.
jeffmould 11y ago
Unfortunately the US legal system is not defendant friendly. While the US claims "innocent until proven guilty" our legal system is structured opposite. The other, larger in my opinion, problem is that the focus has gone from using common sense to zero tolerance. This case is a prime example. I am not by any means support child pornography, but at the same time the sex offender laws in the US are out of control. Take for example a friend of mine who was drunk and got peeing in front of car on a dark street. A cop just happened to see him and he was subsequently arrested, charged, and convicted of indecent exposure. Because of the conviction he had to register as a sex offender. The US sex offender registry makes no distinction though between the individual caught peeing in the alley and the person who has molested hundreds of kids. The bigger issue is that no politician will touch correcting the situation for fear of being labeled as support child pornography. So while everyone knows the system is screwed up, and people continued to be punished harshly because of it, nothing will change because everyone is so scared to talk about the problem in the first place. There are many other cases, outside of sex offenses, where individuals who may be guilty of a lesser crime take a plea deal to a larger crime to avoid the cost, time, and most importantly uncertainty associated with going to trial. I think, at least with sex offenses, we will see in the future a shift in dealing with the problem though. It is somewhat like drugs. In the early 1980s Reagan was hard-nosed on the war on drugs. He enacted stiff penalties and encouraged three strike laws. This sent a lot of people to jail for a long time on charges that were otherwise non-offenses. You see people in California serving life sentences for having three charges of possession of marijuana. Today though as a younger generation comes into power, and people are slowly changing their views on marijuana, we are seeing a shift in punishment for the same crimes. I predict that at some point there will be tipping point with crimes like this article highlight where people will say enough is enough we need to fix this problem. Until then though, you are going to see more and more articles like this.
- chappi42 11y ago
  Thanks for explaining.
bsimpson 11y ago
I imagine there's also a risk:reward calculation. As much as it would suck to plead this out, the penalty is 30 hours of community service and not carrying a phone for a year. The alternative carries a penalty of registering as a sex offender, the legal equivalent of a scarlet letter. That can have serious repercussions on your adult life. So, the calculus is: swallow some pride and be mildly inconvenienced for a year, or fight for justice and hope you don't ruin your life in the process.

minimaxir 11y ago

While the case may be incredibly weak, the defendant may still be unable to fight it due to other factors (most notably cost and time), and therefore take the plea instead. Lawyers are expensive everywhere. Generally, refusing a plea deal for ideological reasons is not a smart legal strategy.

leaveyou 11y ago
Why are lawyers expensive everywhere ? Demand and supply does not apply to them ?
- minimaxir 11y ago
  Less of a supply/demand microeconomic reason, more of a willingness-to-pay rationale (i.e. if you are at risk of going to jail, you'll pay ANYTHING to avoid it, and lawyers charge accordingly).
  - leaveyou 11y ago
    It's kind of paradoxical that people would rather accept unfavorable pleas because they don't want to/can't pay anything.. and the lawyers are still expensive..
- ma2rten 11y ago
  I think s/he means lawyers are expensive everywhere in the US. I never heard of someone going bankrupt in Europe for defending themselves so I researched it. In Germany there are fixed prices that lawyers can charge.
- tsotha 11y ago
  The chart for legal salaries has two big lobes: a small sharp one at the very high end and a huge one at the low end. The last time I looked a brand new JD from an unexceptional law school was looking at a starting salary of somewhere in the mid $40k range. So as professionals go, lawyers aren't that expensive (assuming you're not hiring from Harvard). But running a law office is expensive. You're going to have idle "legal capacity" which has has to be paid for by the clients you do get.
chappi42 11y ago
Aren't there lawyers without cost? (German: Pflichtverteidiger - maybe: assigned counsel). How is a 16 year old supposed to pay for a lawyer?
- tbrownaw 11y ago
  There are supposed to be (public defenders), but they tend to be wildly underfunded and overworked.
- ma2rten 11y ago
  There are. It's called public defender, but they are often overworked because they don't have sufficient budget. This means they will suggest most of their defendants to take a plea bargin and not take the risk of going to trail.

jeffmould 11y ago

Unfortunately the US legal system is not defendant friendly. While the US claims "innocent until proven guilty" our legal system is structured opposite. The other, larger in my opinion, problem is that the focus has gone from using common sense to zero tolerance. This case is a prime example. I am not by any means support child pornography, but at the same time the sex offender laws in the US are out of control. Take for example a friend of mine who was drunk and got peeing in front of car on a dark street. A cop just happened to see him and he was subsequently arrested, charged, and convicted of indecent exposure. Because of the conviction he had to register as a sex offender. The US sex offender registry makes no distinction though between the individual caught peeing in the alley and the person who has molested hundreds of kids. The bigger issue is that no politician will touch correcting the situation for fear of being labeled as support child pornography. So while everyone knows the system is screwed up, and people continued to be punished harshly because of it, nothing will change because everyone is so scared to talk about the problem in the first place. There are many other cases, outside of sex offenses, where individuals who may be guilty of a lesser crime take a plea deal to a larger crime to avoid the cost, time, and most importantly uncertainty associated with going to trial. I think, at least with sex offenses, we will see in the future a shift in dealing with the problem though. It is somewhat like drugs. In the early 1980s Reagan was hard-nosed on the war on drugs. He enacted stiff penalties and encouraged three strike laws. This sent a lot of people to jail for a long time on charges that were otherwise non-offenses. You see people in California serving life sentences for having three charges of possession of marijuana. Today though as a younger generation comes into power, and people are slowly changing their views on marijuana, we are seeing a shift in punishment for the same crimes. I predict that at some point there will be tipping point with crimes like this article highlight where people will say enough is enough we need to fix this problem. Until then though, you are going to see more and more articles like this.

chappi42 11y ago
Thanks for explaining.

bsimpson 11y ago

I imagine there's also a risk:reward calculation. As much as it would suck to plead this out, the penalty is 30 hours of community service and not carrying a phone for a year. The alternative carries a penalty of registering as a sex offender, the legal equivalent of a scarlet letter. That can have serious repercussions on your adult life. So, the calculus is: swallow some pride and be mildly inconvenienced for a year, or fight for justice and hope you don't ruin your life in the process.