4 ms·

Are you talking about plea bargains, that American system for bullying people into forgoing their right to be tried on the evidence?

by waqf 14y ago

tptacek 14y ago
It seems like you either think we should eliminate the ability for defendants to negotiate lesser sentences, or you want to make an entirely orthogonal point about the US criminal justice system. Which is it? Prosecutors routinely have to decide between pressing an ambitious charge with a higher risk of acquittal, or settling for a lesser charge. This happens all the way up and down the spectrum of offenses; for instance, there's something like 4 different things a mugger in Chicago can get charged with. How exactly do this balance get handled when the prosecutor is by charter acting in their own interests and not the interests of the community?
- waqf 14y ago
  para 2: I don't understand the issue. Surely the prosecutor should throw everything s/he's got and the judge and jury, who are charged with protecting the interests of the community, decide what sticks? For the prosecutor to be involved in that decision seems a conflict of interest/incentive to corruption (this is the point you are making about private prosecutions, but I would argue that even a public prosecutor is rewarded for convictions). para 1: yes, I want to eliminate the ability for defendants to negotiate lesser sentences. Like many practices we like to despise governments for tolerating (bribery, corruption, torture), it's convenient, practical and even successful in many cases, but it's totally unjust.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    It's totally unjust if the world is a computer simulation in which arbiters have perfect information and there's a binary right/wrong answer to every problem. Since that's not the world we live in, I am very glad prosecutors are allowed the discretion to follow human intuition about the grade of offense to charge. Like most other government interventions, there are checks and balances regulation that discretion.
arethuza 14y ago
I don't think we "officially" have plea bargains in the UK but something similar does happen. I was on the jury for a case involving someone being assaulted with a knife, before the case could actually really get started it we were told the chap being prosecuted had pleaded guilty to another lesser offence and we were all sent home.

Are you talking about plea bargains, that American system for bullying people into forgoing their right to be tried on the evidence?

by waqf 14y ago

Are you talking about plea bargains, that American system for bullying people into forgoing their right to be tried on the evidence?

tptacek 14y ago

It seems like you either think we should eliminate the ability for defendants to negotiate lesser sentences, or you want to make an entirely orthogonal point about the US criminal justice system. Which is it? Prosecutors routinely have to decide between pressing an ambitious charge with a higher risk of acquittal, or settling for a lesser charge. This happens all the way up and down the spectrum of offenses; for instance, there's something like 4 different things a mugger in Chicago can get charged with. How exactly do this balance get handled when the prosecutor is by charter acting in their own interests and not the interests of the community?

waqf 14y ago
para 2: I don't understand the issue. Surely the prosecutor should throw everything s/he's got and the judge and jury, who are charged with protecting the interests of the community, decide what sticks? For the prosecutor to be involved in that decision seems a conflict of interest/incentive to corruption (this is the point you are making about private prosecutions, but I would argue that even a public prosecutor is rewarded for convictions). para 1: yes, I want to eliminate the ability for defendants to negotiate lesser sentences. Like many practices we like to despise governments for tolerating (bribery, corruption, torture), it's convenient, practical and even successful in many cases, but it's totally unjust.
- tptacek 14y ago
  It's totally unjust if the world is a computer simulation in which arbiters have perfect information and there's a binary right/wrong answer to every problem. Since that's not the world we live in, I am very glad prosecutors are allowed the discretion to follow human intuition about the grade of offense to charge. Like most other government interventions, there are checks and balances regulation that discretion.

arethuza 14y ago

I don't think we "officially" have plea bargains in the UK but something similar does happen. I was on the jury for a case involving someone being assaulted with a knife, before the case could actually really get started it we were told the chap being prosecuted had pleaded guilty to another lesser offence and we were all sent home.