3 ms·

Can you point to the bit of the US constitution that says it's illegal for sentencing to consider questions of remorse and admission of guilt as factors?

_DeadFred_ 2y ago
Edit: In a plea, a judge isn't reducing your sentence for contrition. It is the Prosecutor that is lowering the sentence they are asking the court for. The judge reducing your sentence at sentencing happens much later and is seperate from the plea agreement which is the part where the trial tax is introduced because yes, there is a constitutional process for sentencing and the judge definitely would not be allowed as large of variances during sentencing as prosecutors introduce with plea agreements. So let's take your right to remain silent. You are SPECIFICALLY protected from exercising that right being used against you to assume guilt/impact the process. But with your right to a trial, somehow it is totally OK for the government to punish you for exercising your right. Twist it all you want. We don't punish people for exercising their right to remain silent. You should not be punished for exercising your rights. Again, the court is REQUIRED to ask and you are REQUIRED to attest during a plea that you weren't coerced, even though everyone in the room knows you were threatened with the trial tax (often times in the tens of years of addition time in prison, which also brings your security classification up because classification is partly based on sentence length, meaning you will also then go to much rougher prisons), yet everyone just lets the entire process be one big lie. So the process you promote 1. Takes away rights (you can't be said to truly have a right if the government can, at their whim, punish you for using it with tens of years in prison and with being sent to a much rougher prison). 2. Subverts the courts mechanisms to ensure fairness in that it turns the entire 'must ensure there wasn't coercion of a plea' into a giant lie by omission with everyone pretending they don't see it.

_DeadFred_ 2y ago

Edit: In a plea, a judge isn't reducing your sentence for contrition. It is the Prosecutor that is lowering the sentence they are asking the court for. The judge reducing your sentence at sentencing happens much later and is seperate from the plea agreement which is the part where the trial tax is introduced because yes, there is a constitutional process for sentencing and the judge definitely would not be allowed as large of variances during sentencing as prosecutors introduce with plea agreements. So let's take your right to remain silent. You are SPECIFICALLY protected from exercising that right being used against you to assume guilt/impact the process. But with your right to a trial, somehow it is totally OK for the government to punish you for exercising your right. Twist it all you want. We don't punish people for exercising their right to remain silent. You should not be punished for exercising your rights. Again, the court is REQUIRED to ask and you are REQUIRED to attest during a plea that you weren't coerced, even though everyone in the room knows you were threatened with the trial tax (often times in the tens of years of addition time in prison, which also brings your security classification up because classification is partly based on sentence length, meaning you will also then go to much rougher prisons), yet everyone just lets the entire process be one big lie. So the process you promote 1. Takes away rights (you can't be said to truly have a right if the government can, at their whim, punish you for using it with tens of years in prison and with being sent to a much rougher prison). 2. Subverts the courts mechanisms to ensure fairness in that it turns the entire 'must ensure there wasn't coercion of a plea' into a giant lie by omission with everyone pretending they don't see it.