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Innocent people plead guilty. 66% of drug crime exonerations were from guilty pleas, not trials. This fact invalidates most of your reasoning in your last two

Innocent people plead guilty. 66% of drug crime exonerations were from guilty pleas, not trials. This fact invalidates most of your reasoning in your last two replies above. http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/NRE.Guilty.Plea.Article1.pdf http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/NRE.G...

otterley 6y ago
It doesn’t invalidate my advice that you should hire the best defense counsel possible. We have an adversarial trial system because we don’t know of any better system to get to the truth of a dispute or a charge, and if you find yourself on the wrong end of it, you’re well advised to come armed with the best defense possible. Case in point: the very document you posted says, “The proportion among adult sexual assault exonerations is particularly low, 4%. Perhaps avoiding the stigma of a sex-crime conviction is so important that few innocent rape defendants plead guilty...” Are innocent people imprisoned? Yes, that happens and that is terrible. I don’t think any right minded individual wants that. But as the document itself pointed out, most innocent prisoners plead guilty. If they had good defense counsel (which they almost certainly didn’t) and they were in fact innocent, then they would not have been advised to plead guilty. The document itself says that most innocent prisoners plead guilty to avoid pretrial detention, which no competent criminal defense lawyer would recommend. The existence of exceptions to a general observation doesn’t mean the general observation is invalid, just like the existence of cosmic rays screwing up a computational answer doesn’t make the general design of a CPU a doorstop.
- filoeleven 6y ago
  This is what I was referring to: > If you end up in a position where you need a criminal lawyer, it’s rather likely you did something really foolish to attract enforcement attention. And if you can’t afford an attorney, you can always take your chances with a public defender. But I wouldn’t recommend it. > If you think the punishments the US imposes are severe, that’s an even greater incentive not to commit crimes you can’t afford to defend yourself against. Those come across to my eyes as “you’re the idiot who got yourself here, shoulda thought of consequences sooner.” But given 1) unequal policing that targets the poor, 2) police corruption that goes uncorrected, 3) overworked therefore often inadequate public defenders, 4) the practice of throwing the book at anyone who dares go to trial among other ways of coercing a plea deal, it is way too easy to be innocent and poor, with your only real options being “plead guilty for 3-5 years” or “go to trial with the deck severely stacked against you and risk 30+ years.” With 95% of cases pleading out, there’s simply no way that innocents caught in the system are anywhere near “cosmic ray” levels of rare. Which brings us back to this statement from ‘harimau777 way upthread: > A system where you are only protected if you pay isn't justice, it's a protection racket. You disagreed with the second half of that statement, and that’s fair. Maybe a better way to state the main sentiment there is: A system where you are not protected unless you can pay isn’t justice.

otterley 6y ago

It doesn’t invalidate my advice that you should hire the best defense counsel possible. We have an adversarial trial system because we don’t know of any better system to get to the truth of a dispute or a charge, and if you find yourself on the wrong end of it, you’re well advised to come armed with the best defense possible. Case in point: the very document you posted says, “The proportion among adult sexual assault exonerations is particularly low, 4%. Perhaps avoiding the stigma of a sex-crime conviction is so important that few innocent rape defendants plead guilty...” Are innocent people imprisoned? Yes, that happens and that is terrible. I don’t think any right minded individual wants that. But as the document itself pointed out, most innocent prisoners plead guilty. If they had good defense counsel (which they almost certainly didn’t) and they were in fact innocent, then they would not have been advised to plead guilty. The document itself says that most innocent prisoners plead guilty to avoid pretrial detention, which no competent criminal defense lawyer would recommend. The existence of exceptions to a general observation doesn’t mean the general observation is invalid, just like the existence of cosmic rays screwing up a computational answer doesn’t make the general design of a CPU a doorstop.

filoeleven 6y ago
This is what I was referring to: > If you end up in a position where you need a criminal lawyer, it’s rather likely you did something really foolish to attract enforcement attention. And if you can’t afford an attorney, you can always take your chances with a public defender. But I wouldn’t recommend it. > If you think the punishments the US imposes are severe, that’s an even greater incentive not to commit crimes you can’t afford to defend yourself against. Those come across to my eyes as “you’re the idiot who got yourself here, shoulda thought of consequences sooner.” But given 1) unequal policing that targets the poor, 2) police corruption that goes uncorrected, 3) overworked therefore often inadequate public defenders, 4) the practice of throwing the book at anyone who dares go to trial among other ways of coercing a plea deal, it is way too easy to be innocent and poor, with your only real options being “plead guilty for 3-5 years” or “go to trial with the deck severely stacked against you and risk 30+ years.” With 95% of cases pleading out, there’s simply no way that innocents caught in the system are anywhere near “cosmic ray” levels of rare. Which brings us back to this statement from ‘harimau777 way upthread: > A system where you are only protected if you pay isn't justice, it's a protection racket. You disagreed with the second half of that statement, and that’s fair. Maybe a better way to state the main sentiment there is: A system where you are not protected unless you can pay isn’t justice.