5 ms·

Let's instead fix vast overcharging, with 5x-20x pleabargain:max sentence ratios. If something is bad enough to lock someone away for 20 years, 2 years shouldn'

by gte910h 14y ago

Let's instead fix vast overcharging, with 5x-20x pleabargain:max sentence ratios. If something is bad enough to lock someone away for 20 years, 2 years shouldn't be an option just because they made the legal system cost less money. Plea bargains are coercive, undermining our rights to a trial by the jury of our peers, and are likely coercing false testimony/false corroboration of evidence against 3rd parties far more than they should More trials for actual bad things, fewer arrests for just marginally bad things, and less prosecutorial discretion is what we need here. Computer crime having overly high penalties in most cases is merely a symptom of a general problem we should be solving for all law.

rayiner 14y ago
Yes. This is just a fragment of a much larger problem.
betterunix 14y ago
How about not having plea bargains? The odds are always stacked against the defendant in a plea bargain, and plea bargaining is the primary reason we have the world's largest prison population, as well as the only reason so many of those prisoners were never actually found guilty in a court of law.
westicle 14y ago
This might be too extreme, but what about forcing the prosecution to put some skin in the game where it comes to predicting the eventual outcome of the case? In civil matters parties have the option of making a "Calderbank Offer", in which they put forth a reasonable resolution for the dispute by mutual agreement. If the other side does not accept that offer, but does not get a better outcome than the offer made, they are punished with costs consequences (for tying up court resources, forcing the other party through expensive litigation etc). In a criminal trial, perhaps the prosecution should be required to go on record stating the sentence they will be asking the court for. In the event that the actual sentence varies significantly from the sentence threatened by the prosecution, a discounting procedure could be applied (for every 10% the prosecutor overstates the likely sentence, the accused receives a 5% reduction in their sentence). ie. if a prosecutor proposes a 4 month custodial sentence for accessing academic journal articles, and a judge imposes 2 months, the accused would be entitled to a 50% discount, and serve only 1 month. If the prosecutor proposes 35 years, the accused serves no time.
- gte910h 14y ago
  Judges just accept prosecutor's amount over and over and over. Doesn't work.

by gte910h 14y ago

rayiner 14y ago

Yes. This is just a fragment of a much larger problem.

betterunix 14y ago

How about not having plea bargains? The odds are always stacked against the defendant in a plea bargain, and plea bargaining is the primary reason we have the world's largest prison population, as well as the only reason so many of those prisoners were never actually found guilty in a court of law.

westicle 14y ago

This might be too extreme, but what about forcing the prosecution to put some skin in the game where it comes to predicting the eventual outcome of the case? In civil matters parties have the option of making a "Calderbank Offer", in which they put forth a reasonable resolution for the dispute by mutual agreement. If the other side does not accept that offer, but does not get a better outcome than the offer made, they are punished with costs consequences (for tying up court resources, forcing the other party through expensive litigation etc). In a criminal trial, perhaps the prosecution should be required to go on record stating the sentence they will be asking the court for. In the event that the actual sentence varies significantly from the sentence threatened by the prosecution, a discounting procedure could be applied (for every 10% the prosecutor overstates the likely sentence, the accused receives a 5% reduction in their sentence). ie. if a prosecutor proposes a 4 month custodial sentence for accessing academic journal articles, and a judge imposes 2 months, the accused would be entitled to a 50% discount, and serve only 1 month. If the prosecutor proposes 35 years, the accused serves no time.

gte910h 14y ago
Judges just accept prosecutor's amount over and over and over. Doesn't work.