5 ms·

Yes, anyone who is charged with something serious should go to trial. It's expensive, but you're locking a person in a cage with criminals for years of their li

by wfo 10y ago

Yes, anyone who is charged with something serious should go to trial. It's expensive, but you're locking a person in a cage with criminals for years of their life (incidentally to be repeatedly beaten and raped, but we can leave aside problems with the CJ system that aren't explicitly plea bargains for the moment), not choosing a floral arrangement. I agree the extreme and severe punishments exacerbate the problems with plea bargains but plea bargains are bad by themselves, in isolation, even if other punishments are fair. The government should NEVER be in the business of giving people special treatment and rewards for waiving their fundamental rights because it's more convenient for the government. Everyone has the right to a trial, but people who exercise it are punished. Which means people don't REALLY have a right to a trial. Imagine if the government promised it would tax people less if they chose to avoid engaging in political speech critical of the government. This case is identical to a plea bargain. Except it's less serious, since it's about money, not about jailing somebody. I'm okay with someone pleading guilty and throwing themselves at the mercy of the court and asking forgiveness. Then it's up to the human beings in the trial to decide how to handle it. Creating a formal system where you do this in exchange for something tangible? Before a trial? No. Innocence or guilt is too important to be bartered like that.

SilasX 10y ago
I still don't see the logic. You're okay with - someone pleading guilty in return for an indefinite punishment, but not a definite one, and - someone getting a more time in the horrible, horrible cage because the trial found them guilty but not less because they realized they would lose - someone getting mercy from the court for pleading guilty, but not "getting special treatment and rewards for waiving right to trial" (which a guilty plea is) - someone leaving their fate in the hands of a capricious, unpredictable jury, but not leaving their fate in the hands of a capricious, unpredictable sentencing judge for the guilty plea I just don't see a consistent preference ordering that spits out "plea bargains should be banned".
- wfo 10y ago
  None of those points really have anything to do with plea bargains -- they are just bad things about the CJ system. -If the CJ system gives out indefinite punishments for trivial things, that's a problem unrelated to plea bargains. The solution isn't to make things even worse by allowing prosecutors to abuse the extreme sentences to force people into (sometimes false) confessions. -Why should someone get years of freedom over someone else because they were law-savvy enough (or paid someone law-savvy enough) to realize they were going to lose and gave the prosecutor a sweet deal to make his job easier? Why create an even more uneven distribution of sentences based on who understands the system or can pay a lawyer to understand it? -The court is set up to be run by humans; they can take mercy on whoever they like. We've chosen to set up our laws that way and I'm pretty ambivalent about whether or not that's a good thing. But even so, that's after the court has found that they are guilty. Mercy can only be applied after guilt is accurately and appropriately assigned -- something plea bargains make impossible. They induce false confessions (it's often the case that an innocent person would spend more time in jail waiting on their trial than they will if they plea bargain -- many decide they don't particularly like jail and take the plea. Not to mention the threat of a bigger sentence). They distort the findings of the court as prosecutors do not try to jail the person for what they can prove they did, rather they use the potential threat of what they might be able to suggest a person did in the future to provide the punishment. -The law is always capricious and unreasonable. It is a human institution and it's adversarial. If someone is given an unreasonable and capricious sentence it's the fault of the prosecutor who pushed for an inappropriate charge (and happened to win anyway), or the judge who abuses his power to punish the person, or the lawmaker to design laws with appropriate punishments. Plea bargains can make punishments more consistent and predictable -- everyone is guilty whenever they are accused. Their sentences are milder than technically could be possible but guilty nonetheless. For the unlucky few who have the audacity to maintain their innocence in the face of a prosecutor on the attack, well, capricious and unreasonable is exactly the name of the game. The phrase "throwing the book at you" exists for a reason. The real point which I don't think you touched on is the simple principle of the government giving citizens special rewards and treatment for waiving their fundamental rights. It shouldn't happen if rights are to remain rights. Why shouldn't congress pass a law saying no taxes for people who sign a pledge to give the government permanent permission to search through all of their documents, computers, affairs, so they waive all protection against search and seizure? It's purely voluntary. Why should citizens subject themselves to the capricious and unpredictable execution of search warrants when they can just come home one evening to a police officer politely saying hello as he rifles through their closet? It's much better than a ridiculous unpredictable SWAT raid at 4am. And they get rewarded for it!

by wfo 10y ago

SilasX 10y ago

I still don't see the logic. You're okay with - someone pleading guilty in return for an indefinite punishment, but not a definite one, and - someone getting a more time in the horrible, horrible cage because the trial found them guilty but not less because they realized they would lose - someone getting mercy from the court for pleading guilty, but not "getting special treatment and rewards for waiving right to trial" (which a guilty plea is) - someone leaving their fate in the hands of a capricious, unpredictable jury, but not leaving their fate in the hands of a capricious, unpredictable sentencing judge for the guilty plea I just don't see a consistent preference ordering that spits out "plea bargains should be banned".

wfo 10y ago
None of those points really have anything to do with plea bargains -- they are just bad things about the CJ system. -If the CJ system gives out indefinite punishments for trivial things, that's a problem unrelated to plea bargains. The solution isn't to make things even worse by allowing prosecutors to abuse the extreme sentences to force people into (sometimes false) confessions. -Why should someone get years of freedom over someone else because they were law-savvy enough (or paid someone law-savvy enough) to realize they were going to lose and gave the prosecutor a sweet deal to make his job easier? Why create an even more uneven distribution of sentences based on who understands the system or can pay a lawyer to understand it? -The court is set up to be run by humans; they can take mercy on whoever they like. We've chosen to set up our laws that way and I'm pretty ambivalent about whether or not that's a good thing. But even so, that's after the court has found that they are guilty. Mercy can only be applied after guilt is accurately and appropriately assigned -- something plea bargains make impossible. They induce false confessions (it's often the case that an innocent person would spend more time in jail waiting on their trial than they will if they plea bargain -- many decide they don't particularly like jail and take the plea. Not to mention the threat of a bigger sentence). They distort the findings of the court as prosecutors do not try to jail the person for what they can prove they did, rather they use the potential threat of what they might be able to suggest a person did in the future to provide the punishment. -The law is always capricious and unreasonable. It is a human institution and it's adversarial. If someone is given an unreasonable and capricious sentence it's the fault of the prosecutor who pushed for an inappropriate charge (and happened to win anyway), or the judge who abuses his power to punish the person, or the lawmaker to design laws with appropriate punishments. Plea bargains can make punishments more consistent and predictable -- everyone is guilty whenever they are accused. Their sentences are milder than technically could be possible but guilty nonetheless. For the unlucky few who have the audacity to maintain their innocence in the face of a prosecutor on the attack, well, capricious and unreasonable is exactly the name of the game. The phrase "throwing the book at you" exists for a reason. The real point which I don't think you touched on is the simple principle of the government giving citizens special rewards and treatment for waiving their fundamental rights. It shouldn't happen if rights are to remain rights. Why shouldn't congress pass a law saying no taxes for people who sign a pledge to give the government permanent permission to search through all of their documents, computers, affairs, so they waive all protection against search and seizure? It's purely voluntary. Why should citizens subject themselves to the capricious and unpredictable execution of search warrants when they can just come home one evening to a police officer politely saying hello as he rifles through their closet? It's much better than a ridiculous unpredictable SWAT raid at 4am. And they get rewarded for it!