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The law means nothing. The law is "interpreted" by judges. If the government wants you to be guilty, they will find a way to make that happen. They don't care a

The law means nothing. The law is "interpreted" by judges. If the government wants you to be guilty, they will find a way to make that happen. They don't care about the rule of law. The US has a 99% conviction rate, highest ever in recorded history.

hiddencost 2mo ago
Conviction rate only measures cases brought to trial. The overwhelming fraction of cases do not go to trial.
- qeternity 2mo ago
  It's the other way around: conviction rate includes plea bargains. Convictions at trial are much lower.
qeternity 2mo ago
You are misunderstanding the conviction rate. Only ~2% of cases actually go to trial, and at trial there is ~80% conviction rate. There are ~4x as many cases dismissed by judges before getting to trial. And the vast majority (90%) of defendants enter into plea bargains. Prosecutors only bring charges when they feel they have a strong case. There are many many cases which are never pursued because of this, and people also get upset about that. Many countries do not have a plea bargain system the way the US does. And if you look at conviction rates at trial, they are smack in line with much of e.g. Western Europe.
- thereforegrin 2mo ago
  wouldn't you go into plea bargain if you knew there's 80% chance of conviction of you don't? At some point the high conviction rate acts as a deterrent from not entering a plea. IMHO this is the case in the US and has been for quite some time.
  - acdha 2mo ago
    That’s repeating the misunderstanding: the conviction rate is high because the government voluntarily drops or reduces charges when their case is weak. You have to think of it as “80% of the cases the government thought it would win” rather than “80% of all cases ever considered”. What does lead to pleas is the expense of defending a case: if you acknowledge some guilt, you might decide to accept a lesser charge rather than exhaust your finances with no guarantee that you won’t get that lesser charge anyway.

hiddencost 2mo ago

Conviction rate only measures cases brought to trial. The overwhelming fraction of cases do not go to trial.

qeternity 2mo ago
It's the other way around: conviction rate includes plea bargains. Convictions at trial are much lower.

qeternity 2mo ago

You are misunderstanding the conviction rate. Only ~2% of cases actually go to trial, and at trial there is ~80% conviction rate. There are ~4x as many cases dismissed by judges before getting to trial. And the vast majority (90%) of defendants enter into plea bargains. Prosecutors only bring charges when they feel they have a strong case. There are many many cases which are never pursued because of this, and people also get upset about that. Many countries do not have a plea bargain system the way the US does. And if you look at conviction rates at trial, they are smack in line with much of e.g. Western Europe.

thereforegrin 2mo ago
wouldn't you go into plea bargain if you knew there's 80% chance of conviction of you don't? At some point the high conviction rate acts as a deterrent from not entering a plea. IMHO this is the case in the US and has been for quite some time.
- acdha 2mo ago
  That’s repeating the misunderstanding: the conviction rate is high because the government voluntarily drops or reduces charges when their case is weak. You have to think of it as “80% of the cases the government thought it would win” rather than “80% of all cases ever considered”. What does lead to pleas is the expense of defending a case: if you acknowledge some guilt, you might decide to accept a lesser charge rather than exhaust your finances with no guarantee that you won’t get that lesser charge anyway.