5 ms·

> For those who get arrested due to colorimetric testing, “over 90% of people are taking a plea deal because they can’t afford to remain in jail and wait six mo

> For those who get arrested due to colorimetric testing, “over 90% of people are taking a plea deal because they can’t afford to remain in jail and wait six months for laboratory tests,” Walsh said. This touches on a question to which I'd love to know the answer: what would happen if those charged with crimes could not waive their right to a speedy trial and plea deals were disallowed? For the accused: those with low resources would go to trial with less time to mount a defense. Disallowing plea deals would remove the possibility of coercing lower-severity conviction pleas. For the prosecutor: less time to mount a prosecution. Benefits to courts and jails: much cleaner and more open dockets, jails cleared out much quicker. Presumably this would lead to more rational charges - fewer charges and charges that were higher priority and easier to prove. In the short term, prosecutors would have no choice but to drop a huge number of charges as they would be overwhelmed. EDIT: here's an interesting data point where it looks like NYC passed a law that required prosecutors to have all evidence ready prior to the speedy trial date. It seems like it drove a lot of dismissals of low level stuff: https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Discovery_Report-1.pdf https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2...

mikkupikku 6mo ago
Cynical outcome: the system can't handle the case load and instead of scaling, it just refuses to adjudicate any dispute that doesn't involve a noble. Justice between commoners is effectively abandoned as a duty by the state, and left to vigilantism.
- seany 6mo ago
  This seems implicitly preferable than the beauacratic death of the alternative.
  - saltwatercowboy 6mo ago
    Neither are acceptable, so a third way must be found
  - mikkupikku 6mo ago
    I really do appreciate the sentiment, and in a flippant sense I agree, but if we're being real, the potential for harm to innocents, at least in the short/near term, is far greater if society devolves into vigilante mobs; study the Cultural Revolution if you want a realistic picture of some of the failure modes here. On the other hand, a period of chaos might be beneficial in the long term; that's the accelerationist position. Worth considering, but be careful with that mode of thinking. The ends justifying the means has gotten a great many people killed for ends that never manifested.
- cogman10 6mo ago
  > it just refuses to adjudicate any dispute that doesn't involve a noble Oh I got news for you, that already happened. Anyone that's had their car broken into, bike stolen, or house burgled can tell you that cops won't do anything. And if you look at serious crimes like homicide, you'll find a clearance rate of about 66%. And that's their self reported clearance rate. It's not successful prosecution. That's just the "we've looked into this enough and have decreed we think this person did it". It's a lot worse if you look at crimes like rape. The crimes that police actually police are property crimes. Specifically for the nobles. Cops are pretty good at responding to stores being robbed or a crime against a wealthy and well connected person. Steal $1000 from a target and you'll get the book thrown at you. Steal a $1000 bike in front of the same target and cops will shrug and say there's nothing they can do about it.
  - SoftTalker 6mo ago
    Your example is flawed because Target has cameras and a security staff watching for shoplifters, and they will detain you as you walk out the door, and they will provide video and eyewitness testimony to the prosecutor. It's a slam dunk case. The shoplifters who do manage to walk out undetected are of no interest to the police, as there's no basis for a case against them.
    - cogman10 6mo ago
      Target has security cameras on the outside and staff constantly walking around wrangling carts. That's why I picked this exact example. The evidence is pretty much the same. At many locations, cars at grocery stores get broken into pretty frequently. Yet it's unusual for cops to ever do anything about those cases. That's not due to a lack of evidence, most grocery stores have cameras throughout the lot. Hell, it's even less of an excuse today due to the amount of surveillance via flock cameras cities have adopted. Yet cops still don't do a thing about this sort of theft.
      - SoftTalker 6mo ago
        Kids picking up carts aren't going to detain anyone. It's the detaining that makes it work. The cops just come pick them up, they have eyewitnesses and video. Easy work. The security guards that do the actual detaining are often off-duty LEO picking up extra hours. Even Kroger here has an armed officer at the exit door. So they can legally detain you and even arrest you. True that they don't care about the bike outside. It's not their property.
- tsss 6mo ago
  This is already happening in Germany.
  - subscribed 6mo ago
    And the UK. Burglary? Theft? Biker robbed at the knife point? The police will try to discourage from reporting that at all, and if you insist you'll get the crime number and promise that nothing will ever be done. They even refuse to send the patrol that could recover a stolen car despite the owner pinpointing it to the very specific garage based on the GPS tracking. The police will, however, beat you and arrest if you dare ro protest against killing kids with bombs.
- cindyllm 6mo ago
  [dead]
- graybeardhacker 6mo ago
  In Maine there is a lack of public defenders and now must release those who are unable to get a trial in a reasonable time: https://observer-me.com/2025/03/12/news/maine-must-release-people-from-jail-drop-charges-if-no-lawyer-available-justice-rules/ https://observer-me.com/2025/03/12/news/maine-must-release-p...
wat10000 6mo ago
Waiving rights is weird. It’s well understood that you can’t waive your right not to be a slave, for example. Why should you be able to waive any right? The 6th amendment doesn’t say “unless the accused doesn’t want it.”
- cogman10 6mo ago
  Because it's presumably beneficial. It gives your lawyers extra time to prepare for the case or to potentially settle on more favorable terms.
  - wat10000 6mo ago
    Waiving your right not to be a slave could be beneficial too.
    - cogman10 6mo ago
      You can become someone's slave if you really want to. The only part that can't be enforced is you can't be coerced to stay. Plenty of cults have slaves in the US. But because the are willing, nothing is done about it.
      - ahhhhnoooo 6mo ago
        Heck, plenty of us companies still rely on slave labor. Look at Aramark's use of prisoners, for example.
        wat10000 6mo ago
        That's an explicit carveout in the Constitution allowing slavery as punishment for a crime, not someone waiving their rights.
      - wat10000 6mo ago
        This reminds me of Futurama: "You know the worst thing about being a slave? They make you work, but they don't pay you or let you go." "That's the only thing about being a slave!" So yeah, you can legally be a slave as long as you leave out the one part that makes it slavery.
unyttigfjelltol 6mo ago
It's obviously a problem with efficiency, resources and incentives. Earlier court dates is reshuffling deck chairs on the titanic, basically after the ship sank. Since the problem is about labs and technology, and that the state labs declared themselves too busy to do justice, the solution is to provide accountability for those decision-makers. Just to reinforce: the reporter read the label on these field drug tests police were using to charge crimes, and ascertained that they were unfit for this use; yet the state lab which should have been broadcasting this information to the police, not only failed, but refused to test the same articles for months and months, until the case was literally at trial. I know it wouldn't make good press, but this story should be "labs, labs, labs, what in the world is wrong with state labs". You can't fix it with new laws, you need better people in charge of these labs.
redwall_hp 6mo ago
Another thing that enables the plea bargain system is the existence of bail, which has long been criticized for being a pay-to-win scheme baking inequality into the legal system. It's also seen by other parts of the world as bizarre. You just...don't hold people before their court date if they're unlikely to harm other people. If they can be released on bail, there's no reason they shouldn't be without the grift.
_DeadFred_ 6mo ago
Plea deals were illegal for the majority of America's history. You could help fix this problem by removing the 'trial' tax. Currently you receive a much lower sentence if you take the plea. If a punishment is truly fair based on the crime the sentence should be required by law to be the same in both cases.
- FireBeyond 6mo ago
  And are still illegal/unused in the vast majority of the rest of the world. And in most of those jurisdictions where it is a possibility, its use is massively less (less than 1% per capita) and also far more regulated, and subject to review. In the US a judge ostensibly has the power of veto over a plea deal, though in practice this is nearly never exercised unless the miscarriage of justice (in either direction) is so egregious that it can't easily be ignored.
none2585 6mo ago
> ... jails cleared out much quicker Private jails generally don't want this because they are paid by the government for the number of people they hold and many states need the slave labor of the incarcerated.

mikkupikku 6mo ago

Cynical outcome: the system can't handle the case load and instead of scaling, it just refuses to adjudicate any dispute that doesn't involve a noble. Justice between commoners is effectively abandoned as a duty by the state, and left to vigilantism.

seany 6mo ago
This seems implicitly preferable than the beauacratic death of the alternative.
- saltwatercowboy 6mo ago
  Neither are acceptable, so a third way must be found
- mikkupikku 6mo ago
  I really do appreciate the sentiment, and in a flippant sense I agree, but if we're being real, the potential for harm to innocents, at least in the short/near term, is far greater if society devolves into vigilante mobs; study the Cultural Revolution if you want a realistic picture of some of the failure modes here. On the other hand, a period of chaos might be beneficial in the long term; that's the accelerationist position. Worth considering, but be careful with that mode of thinking. The ends justifying the means has gotten a great many people killed for ends that never manifested.
cogman10 6mo ago
> it just refuses to adjudicate any dispute that doesn't involve a noble Oh I got news for you, that already happened. Anyone that's had their car broken into, bike stolen, or house burgled can tell you that cops won't do anything. And if you look at serious crimes like homicide, you'll find a clearance rate of about 66%. And that's their self reported clearance rate. It's not successful prosecution. That's just the "we've looked into this enough and have decreed we think this person did it". It's a lot worse if you look at crimes like rape. The crimes that police actually police are property crimes. Specifically for the nobles. Cops are pretty good at responding to stores being robbed or a crime against a wealthy and well connected person. Steal $1000 from a target and you'll get the book thrown at you. Steal a $1000 bike in front of the same target and cops will shrug and say there's nothing they can do about it.
- SoftTalker 6mo ago
  Your example is flawed because Target has cameras and a security staff watching for shoplifters, and they will detain you as you walk out the door, and they will provide video and eyewitness testimony to the prosecutor. It's a slam dunk case. The shoplifters who do manage to walk out undetected are of no interest to the police, as there's no basis for a case against them.
  - cogman10 6mo ago
    Target has security cameras on the outside and staff constantly walking around wrangling carts. That's why I picked this exact example. The evidence is pretty much the same. At many locations, cars at grocery stores get broken into pretty frequently. Yet it's unusual for cops to ever do anything about those cases. That's not due to a lack of evidence, most grocery stores have cameras throughout the lot. Hell, it's even less of an excuse today due to the amount of surveillance via flock cameras cities have adopted. Yet cops still don't do a thing about this sort of theft.
    - SoftTalker 6mo ago
      Kids picking up carts aren't going to detain anyone. It's the detaining that makes it work. The cops just come pick them up, they have eyewitnesses and video. Easy work. The security guards that do the actual detaining are often off-duty LEO picking up extra hours. Even Kroger here has an armed officer at the exit door. So they can legally detain you and even arrest you. True that they don't care about the bike outside. It's not their property.
tsss 6mo ago
This is already happening in Germany.
- subscribed 6mo ago
  And the UK. Burglary? Theft? Biker robbed at the knife point? The police will try to discourage from reporting that at all, and if you insist you'll get the crime number and promise that nothing will ever be done. They even refuse to send the patrol that could recover a stolen car despite the owner pinpointing it to the very specific garage based on the GPS tracking. The police will, however, beat you and arrest if you dare ro protest against killing kids with bombs.
cindyllm 6mo ago
[dead]
graybeardhacker 6mo ago
In Maine there is a lack of public defenders and now must release those who are unable to get a trial in a reasonable time: https://observer-me.com/2025/03/12/news/maine-must-release-people-from-jail-drop-charges-if-no-lawyer-available-justice-rules/ https://observer-me.com/2025/03/12/news/maine-must-release-p...

wat10000 6mo ago

Waiving rights is weird. It’s well understood that you can’t waive your right not to be a slave, for example. Why should you be able to waive any right? The 6th amendment doesn’t say “unless the accused doesn’t want it.”

cogman10 6mo ago
Because it's presumably beneficial. It gives your lawyers extra time to prepare for the case or to potentially settle on more favorable terms.
- wat10000 6mo ago
  Waiving your right not to be a slave could be beneficial too.
  - cogman10 6mo ago
    You can become someone's slave if you really want to. The only part that can't be enforced is you can't be coerced to stay. Plenty of cults have slaves in the US. But because the are willing, nothing is done about it.
    - ahhhhnoooo 6mo ago
      Heck, plenty of us companies still rely on slave labor. Look at Aramark's use of prisoners, for example.
      - wat10000 6mo ago
        That's an explicit carveout in the Constitution allowing slavery as punishment for a crime, not someone waiving their rights.
    - wat10000 6mo ago
      This reminds me of Futurama: "You know the worst thing about being a slave? They make you work, but they don't pay you or let you go." "That's the only thing about being a slave!" So yeah, you can legally be a slave as long as you leave out the one part that makes it slavery.

unyttigfjelltol 6mo ago

It's obviously a problem with efficiency, resources and incentives. Earlier court dates is reshuffling deck chairs on the titanic, basically after the ship sank. Since the problem is about labs and technology, and that the state labs declared themselves too busy to do justice, the solution is to provide accountability for those decision-makers. Just to reinforce: the reporter read the label on these field drug tests police were using to charge crimes, and ascertained that they were unfit for this use; yet the state lab which should have been broadcasting this information to the police, not only failed, but refused to test the same articles for months and months, until the case was literally at trial. I know it wouldn't make good press, but this story should be "labs, labs, labs, what in the world is wrong with state labs". You can't fix it with new laws, you need better people in charge of these labs.

redwall_hp 6mo ago

Another thing that enables the plea bargain system is the existence of bail, which has long been criticized for being a pay-to-win scheme baking inequality into the legal system. It's also seen by other parts of the world as bizarre. You just...don't hold people before their court date if they're unlikely to harm other people. If they can be released on bail, there's no reason they shouldn't be without the grift.

_DeadFred_ 6mo ago

Plea deals were illegal for the majority of America's history. You could help fix this problem by removing the 'trial' tax. Currently you receive a much lower sentence if you take the plea. If a punishment is truly fair based on the crime the sentence should be required by law to be the same in both cases.

FireBeyond 6mo ago
And are still illegal/unused in the vast majority of the rest of the world. And in most of those jurisdictions where it is a possibility, its use is massively less (less than 1% per capita) and also far more regulated, and subject to review. In the US a judge ostensibly has the power of veto over a plea deal, though in practice this is nearly never exercised unless the miscarriage of justice (in either direction) is so egregious that it can't easily be ignored.

none2585 6mo ago

> ... jails cleared out much quicker Private jails generally don't want this because they are paid by the government for the number of people they hold and many states need the slave labor of the incarcerated.