4 ms·

shows an incredible faith in our justice system.

by eof 9y ago

openmosix 9y ago
It is not a made up thing, there is plenty of literature on the subject - http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-plead-guilty/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-peop...
- eof 9y ago
  i didn't mean to imply your faith was unjustified. more that it's indicative of a problem
ApolloFortyNine 9y ago
As long as you are judged by a 'jury of your peers,' there will always be people who take plea deals if they feel the evidence against them might be enough to convince a jury. I'm not sure there exists a 'fair' system that can operate without some sort of jury, but as long as there's a human element no trial has a guaranteed outcome.
- jonathanyc 9y ago
  Plea deals are orthogonal to jury trials, by definition. You could have plea deals in a system without jury trials, and vice versa. In addition, you’re oversimplifying why people agree to plea deals. Lawyers are expensive, and a poor person might prefer to just go to jail for a short time rather than spend thousands of dollars for an uncertain outcome. Even if they are confident they would win in a jury trial, that’s still thousands of dollars in fees to their lawyer.
  - ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
    >poor person might prefer to just go to jail for a short time rather than spend thousands of dollars for an uncertain outcome. This was literally my point, jury trials are uncertain. Except it applies even in cases where people have millions of dollars to burn. A possible 40 years in prison or 5 years under house arrest? Though of course, as I was typing I was reminded of the Android case. And countless other cases where a judge was the unknown factor, so really, it doesn't matter how much lawyers cost. Any trial will always be an unknown until someone can code a deterministic judge bot.
    - jonathanyc 8y ago
      > so really, it doesn't matter how much lawyers cost I really advise you to read up on some of the literature about plea deals; there are very few people who think that they are something we should have at the scale that we have them, or something that we should have “as long as” we have jury trials. The prevalence of plea deals in the American criminal justice system is primarily due to the fact that there are simply too many crimes for our courts and public defenders to handle promptly (an incentive for prosecutors) and that legal representation is so expensive (an incentive for defendants, and also for shady prosecutors). Here’s a blog post on the ACLU’s website about it: https://www.aclu.org/blog/mass-incarceration/its-not-just-prosecutorial-leverage-thats-eroding-our-justice-system https://www.aclu.org/blog/mass-incarceration/its-not-just-pr...
mykull 9y ago
Yes, the same one where people are convicted due to lying police on occasion, it's pretty flawed

shows an incredible faith in our justice system.

by eof 9y ago

shows an incredible faith in our justice system.

It is not a made up thing, there is plenty of literature on the subject - http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-plead-guilty/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-peop...

eof 9y ago
i didn't mean to imply your faith was unjustified. more that it's indicative of a problem

ApolloFortyNine 9y ago

As long as you are judged by a 'jury of your peers,' there will always be people who take plea deals if they feel the evidence against them might be enough to convince a jury. I'm not sure there exists a 'fair' system that can operate without some sort of jury, but as long as there's a human element no trial has a guaranteed outcome.

jonathanyc 9y ago
Plea deals are orthogonal to jury trials, by definition. You could have plea deals in a system without jury trials, and vice versa. In addition, you’re oversimplifying why people agree to plea deals. Lawyers are expensive, and a poor person might prefer to just go to jail for a short time rather than spend thousands of dollars for an uncertain outcome. Even if they are confident they would win in a jury trial, that’s still thousands of dollars in fees to their lawyer.
- ApolloFortyNine 8y ago
  >poor person might prefer to just go to jail for a short time rather than spend thousands of dollars for an uncertain outcome. This was literally my point, jury trials are uncertain. Except it applies even in cases where people have millions of dollars to burn. A possible 40 years in prison or 5 years under house arrest? Though of course, as I was typing I was reminded of the Android case. And countless other cases where a judge was the unknown factor, so really, it doesn't matter how much lawyers cost. Any trial will always be an unknown until someone can code a deterministic judge bot.
  - jonathanyc 8y ago
    > so really, it doesn't matter how much lawyers cost I really advise you to read up on some of the literature about plea deals; there are very few people who think that they are something we should have at the scale that we have them, or something that we should have “as long as” we have jury trials. The prevalence of plea deals in the American criminal justice system is primarily due to the fact that there are simply too many crimes for our courts and public defenders to handle promptly (an incentive for prosecutors) and that legal representation is so expensive (an incentive for defendants, and also for shady prosecutors). Here’s a blog post on the ACLU’s website about it: https://www.aclu.org/blog/mass-incarceration/its-not-just-prosecutorial-leverage-thats-eroding-our-justice-system https://www.aclu.org/blog/mass-incarceration/its-not-just-pr...

mykull 9y ago

Yes, the same one where people are convicted due to lying police on occasion, it's pretty flawed