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> Not sure how often this occurs, but this is definitely bad. Unless you have a clear alibi with documented proof that you were nowhere near the scene of the c

> Not sure how often this occurs, but this is definitely bad. Unless you have a clear alibi with documented proof that you were nowhere near the scene of the crime, every public defender in America (and plenty of private lawyers) recommends you take a plea deal. Even if the charges are absurd. Even if you repeatedly assaulted the police officer's fist with your eye-socket in the process of being arrested. Even if your friends, your parents, and your priest were all witnesses to your innocence, a plea bargain is the first and most prominent option.

speedplane 9y ago
Not so simple. It depends on the evidence the prosecution brings. If they come in with nothing, you'll win. More often than not, they have a lot of evidence.
- michaelchisari 9y ago
  That's not true. I have friends who had court cases last years (literally, two years) because the prosecution promised a video tape that proved guilt. They repeatedly failed to bring the evidence to court. I forget if the charges were dropped or if they were provided the option of accepting the original plea bargain, but the evidence was never produced. There is no requirement for the prosecution to provide a clear case (or even a weak one) at the time of presenting a plea bargain. They often use the extremity of the charges as their hand.
  - speedplane 9y ago
    There are definitely abuses, and what you describe definitely constitutes an abuse, but that hasn't been my experience.
    - michaelchisari 9y ago
      That has only been my experience. Every single person I know who has ever been arrested has been strong-armed into a plea bargain, regardless of evidence or guilt. John Oliver did a piece on public defenders that talks a lot about plea bargains, amongst other problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USkEzLuzmZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USkEzLuzmZ4 Here's a study from the Department of Justice: https://www.bja.gov/Publications/PleaBargainingResearchSummary.pdf https://www.bja.gov/Publications/PleaBargainingResearchSumma... According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2005), in 2003 there were 75,573 cases disposed of in federal district court by trial or plea. Of these, about 95 percent were disposed of by a guilty plea (Pastore and Maguire, 2003). While there are no exact estimates of the proportion of cases that are resolved through plea bargaining, scholars estimate that about 90 to 95 percent of both federal and state court cases are resolved through this process (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2005; Flanagan and Maguire, 1990).
    - Chathamization 9y ago
      It seems that it's a quite common experience[1]: > As prosecutors have accumulated power in recent decades, judges and public defenders have lost it. To induce defendants to plead, prosecutors often threaten “the trial penalty”: They make it known that defendants will face more-serious charges and harsher sentences if they take their case to court and are convicted. About 80 percent of defendants are eligible for court-appointed attorneys, including overworked public defenders who don’t have the time or resources to even consider bringing more than a tiny fraction of these cases to trial. The result, one frustrated Missouri public defender complained a decade ago, is a style of defense that is nothing more than “meet ’em and greet ’em and plead ’em.” [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocence-is-irrelevant/534171/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocen...
      - distances 9y ago
        The plea bargain system is such a gross miscarriage of justice that it boggles the mind. As far as I see, negotiating a plea deal should not be allowed under any circumstances. Either assign more resources to the justice system, or find a way to reduce the number of cases coming in.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    Isn't that contempt? Those watching over the lawyers should follow-up, demand the evidence and, if it's not presented, strike-off (and present for prosecution) the lawyer in question and any party who was involved in the deceit ... surely that's a basic and obvious protection. A lawyer lying in court should be risking their own livelihood at least, with prison as a certainty for attempting to manipulate the court to imprison someone through deceit. It's probably already part of the system, right?
    - watwut 9y ago
      Lawyer lying in court might be in trouble, but it is ok for prosecution to lie during negotiation or interrogation.
      - speedplane 9y ago
        No, it's definitely not. Any lawyer who lies can be disbarred. It's something that every lawyer learns to not do first day of law school... that said, you also learn lots of ways of not saying anything, but implying quite a bit... e.g., you wouldn't say "we found the weapon" when you really didn't, but you could say "we're gonna get the weapon".
    - michaelchisari 9y ago
      I don't know the law enough to say one way or the other, but assuming that you're right... If I remember correctly, the defendants had run out of money, the private lawyer they hired was increasingly doing things pro-bono (and losing focus because of it), and they had already disrupted their lives for two years. Each court date required hours of travel for both of them and days off work. They'd get there, only to have the prosecution kick the can down the road and have the court date postponed for another few weeks, in which case they'd have to do it all over again. That they lasted as long as they did is a testament to them, but the system wore even them down. To add a whole new angle of going after the prosecutors for contempt would have increased the stress on their lives and resources by an order of magnitude.
- matwood 9y ago
  > If they come in with nothing, you'll win. More often than not, they have a lot of evidence. Wow, this is not true at all. Unfortunately, for many jurors simply being charged with a crime is evidence of said crime. The prosecution wields an amazing amount of power, and based on a lot of the news stories coming out they abuse said power. Remember, prosecutors are not rewarded for finding the truth, but for convictions.
- mrgoldenbrown 9y ago
  Sorry, but I find this overly optimistic. I sat on a jury where during deliberations I had to argue with a lady who said the defendant "looked guilty" (ie was black) and that's all she needed to know.
  - speedplane 9y ago
    That's one of the reasons why there are 12 jurors and any one of them can prevent a guilty verdict. It's an imperfect but decent method to root out the bad apples.
Chathamization 9y ago
> Unless you have a clear alibi with documented proof that you were nowhere near the scene of the crime, every public defender in America (and plenty of private lawyers) recommends you take a plea deal. And even when you have a clear alibi including video proof, you're still in grave danger[1]: > Three months later, Juan would be facing a murder rap. The slaying in question had taken place on May 12, the same night he was at Dodger Stadium — 20 miles from the crime. Investigators didn’t buy his story. As covered in the Netflix documentary “Long Shot,” out Friday, Juan’s innocence would ultimately rest on a near brush with fame — more specifically, with Larry David and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” * > Show’ producers allowed Melnik to view their footage from that day. He sourced eight 10-minute tapes before finding his holy grail: Juan, in his No. 27 Kevin Brown shirt, and his young daughter walking to their seats after returning from the concession stand. * > The discovery seemed a home run for Juan, who by then had been in jail over a month. Still, the prosecutor argued that the footage was from 9:10 p.m. — and the murder had occurred at 10:32. Juan ostensibly could have left early, driven to the scene of the crime, and still had time to kill Puebla. It's worth reading the whole thing. They were going to push the death penalty for the guy. Eventually, his lawyer finds other evidence proving he wasn't there. After sitting in jail for five and a half months, he's finally let out, but then has to go back to jail for another 2 weeks because of a clerical error. [1] http://nypost.com/2017/09/23/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved-this-man-from-prison/ http://nypost.com/2017/09/23/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved-...
- winter_blue 9y ago
  What a terrible justice system. It's a disgrace to this country. The way the prosecutors are incentivized to lock people up away forever with little or no evidence, and even kill innocent people (with the death penalty), is cruel and evil.
  - chongli 9y ago
    It's not a justice system, it's a judicial system. Justice is its ostensible purpose, sure, but its true propose is to maintain order so that the state can preserve its authority.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
So who's going to invade and bring democracy and the rule of law to USA? I guess the people in power stand to lose most, as they'll no longer have relative immunity from their crimes. And then you remember USA is "the policeman of the World" ... US voters have a big responsibility.

speedplane 9y ago

Not so simple. It depends on the evidence the prosecution brings. If they come in with nothing, you'll win. More often than not, they have a lot of evidence.

michaelchisari 9y ago
That's not true. I have friends who had court cases last years (literally, two years) because the prosecution promised a video tape that proved guilt. They repeatedly failed to bring the evidence to court. I forget if the charges were dropped or if they were provided the option of accepting the original plea bargain, but the evidence was never produced. There is no requirement for the prosecution to provide a clear case (or even a weak one) at the time of presenting a plea bargain. They often use the extremity of the charges as their hand.
- speedplane 9y ago
  There are definitely abuses, and what you describe definitely constitutes an abuse, but that hasn't been my experience.
  - michaelchisari 9y ago
    That has only been my experience. Every single person I know who has ever been arrested has been strong-armed into a plea bargain, regardless of evidence or guilt. John Oliver did a piece on public defenders that talks a lot about plea bargains, amongst other problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USkEzLuzmZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USkEzLuzmZ4 Here's a study from the Department of Justice: https://www.bja.gov/Publications/PleaBargainingResearchSummary.pdf https://www.bja.gov/Publications/PleaBargainingResearchSumma... According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2005), in 2003 there were 75,573 cases disposed of in federal district court by trial or plea. Of these, about 95 percent were disposed of by a guilty plea (Pastore and Maguire, 2003). While there are no exact estimates of the proportion of cases that are resolved through plea bargaining, scholars estimate that about 90 to 95 percent of both federal and state court cases are resolved through this process (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2005; Flanagan and Maguire, 1990).
  - Chathamization 9y ago
    It seems that it's a quite common experience[1]: > As prosecutors have accumulated power in recent decades, judges and public defenders have lost it. To induce defendants to plead, prosecutors often threaten “the trial penalty”: They make it known that defendants will face more-serious charges and harsher sentences if they take their case to court and are convicted. About 80 percent of defendants are eligible for court-appointed attorneys, including overworked public defenders who don’t have the time or resources to even consider bringing more than a tiny fraction of these cases to trial. The result, one frustrated Missouri public defender complained a decade ago, is a style of defense that is nothing more than “meet ’em and greet ’em and plead ’em.” [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocence-is-irrelevant/534171/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocen...
    - distances 9y ago
      The plea bargain system is such a gross miscarriage of justice that it boggles the mind. As far as I see, negotiating a plea deal should not be allowed under any circumstances. Either assign more resources to the justice system, or find a way to reduce the number of cases coming in.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  Isn't that contempt? Those watching over the lawyers should follow-up, demand the evidence and, if it's not presented, strike-off (and present for prosecution) the lawyer in question and any party who was involved in the deceit ... surely that's a basic and obvious protection. A lawyer lying in court should be risking their own livelihood at least, with prison as a certainty for attempting to manipulate the court to imprison someone through deceit. It's probably already part of the system, right?
  - watwut 9y ago
    Lawyer lying in court might be in trouble, but it is ok for prosecution to lie during negotiation or interrogation.
    - speedplane 9y ago
      No, it's definitely not. Any lawyer who lies can be disbarred. It's something that every lawyer learns to not do first day of law school... that said, you also learn lots of ways of not saying anything, but implying quite a bit... e.g., you wouldn't say "we found the weapon" when you really didn't, but you could say "we're gonna get the weapon".
  - michaelchisari 9y ago
    I don't know the law enough to say one way or the other, but assuming that you're right... If I remember correctly, the defendants had run out of money, the private lawyer they hired was increasingly doing things pro-bono (and losing focus because of it), and they had already disrupted their lives for two years. Each court date required hours of travel for both of them and days off work. They'd get there, only to have the prosecution kick the can down the road and have the court date postponed for another few weeks, in which case they'd have to do it all over again. That they lasted as long as they did is a testament to them, but the system wore even them down. To add a whole new angle of going after the prosecutors for contempt would have increased the stress on their lives and resources by an order of magnitude.
matwood 9y ago
> If they come in with nothing, you'll win. More often than not, they have a lot of evidence. Wow, this is not true at all. Unfortunately, for many jurors simply being charged with a crime is evidence of said crime. The prosecution wields an amazing amount of power, and based on a lot of the news stories coming out they abuse said power. Remember, prosecutors are not rewarded for finding the truth, but for convictions.
mrgoldenbrown 9y ago
Sorry, but I find this overly optimistic. I sat on a jury where during deliberations I had to argue with a lady who said the defendant "looked guilty" (ie was black) and that's all she needed to know.
- speedplane 9y ago
  That's one of the reasons why there are 12 jurors and any one of them can prevent a guilty verdict. It's an imperfect but decent method to root out the bad apples.

Chathamization 9y ago

> Unless you have a clear alibi with documented proof that you were nowhere near the scene of the crime, every public defender in America (and plenty of private lawyers) recommends you take a plea deal. And even when you have a clear alibi including video proof, you're still in grave danger[1]: > Three months later, Juan would be facing a murder rap. The slaying in question had taken place on May 12, the same night he was at Dodger Stadium — 20 miles from the crime. Investigators didn’t buy his story. As covered in the Netflix documentary “Long Shot,” out Friday, Juan’s innocence would ultimately rest on a near brush with fame — more specifically, with Larry David and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” * > Show’ producers allowed Melnik to view their footage from that day. He sourced eight 10-minute tapes before finding his holy grail: Juan, in his No. 27 Kevin Brown shirt, and his young daughter walking to their seats after returning from the concession stand. * > The discovery seemed a home run for Juan, who by then had been in jail over a month. Still, the prosecutor argued that the footage was from 9:10 p.m. — and the murder had occurred at 10:32. Juan ostensibly could have left early, driven to the scene of the crime, and still had time to kill Puebla. It's worth reading the whole thing. They were going to push the death penalty for the guy. Eventually, his lawyer finds other evidence proving he wasn't there. After sitting in jail for five and a half months, he's finally let out, but then has to go back to jail for another 2 weeks because of a clerical error. [1] http://nypost.com/2017/09/23/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved-this-man-from-prison/ http://nypost.com/2017/09/23/how-curb-your-enthusiasm-saved-...

winter_blue 9y ago
What a terrible justice system. It's a disgrace to this country. The way the prosecutors are incentivized to lock people up away forever with little or no evidence, and even kill innocent people (with the death penalty), is cruel and evil.
- chongli 9y ago
  It's not a justice system, it's a judicial system. Justice is its ostensible purpose, sure, but its true propose is to maintain order so that the state can preserve its authority.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

So who's going to invade and bring democracy and the rule of law to USA? I guess the people in power stand to lose most, as they'll no longer have relative immunity from their crimes. And then you remember USA is "the policeman of the World" ... US voters have a big responsibility.