4 ms·

Sometimes I think the real problem is that we've lost the viewpoint of "it's better 1000 guilty go free than 1 innocent be imprisoned". At the very least it sh

Sometimes I think the real problem is that we've lost the viewpoint of "it's better 1000 guilty go free than 1 innocent be imprisoned". At the very least it shouldn't be so easy to, for example, drum up 35 years worth of charges on excessive downloading.

malandrew 14y ago
In fact, the situation today is probably the opposite. With plea bargains, I believe conviction rates are as high as 99.5% (IIRC). Somehow I find it hard to believe that 99.5% of people charged with a crime in this country are actually guilty. That seems dangerously high. I know that many innocent people are let off when a case or charges are dismissed, but of all those that do go to trial, more than a mere half percent must be innocent.
- krichman 14y ago
  99.5% of accused are found guilty? That's totalitarian.
  - malandrew 14y ago
    Mainly because of plea bargaining. "Fewer than 10 percent of the criminal cases brought by the federal government each year are actually tried before juries with all of the accompanying procedural safeguards noted above. More than 90% of the criminal cases in America are never tried, much less proven, to juries. The overwhelming majority of individuals who are accused of crime forgo their constitutional rights and plead guilty."[1] From what I've read elsewhere, of the 10% or so that do go to trial, something like 9 times out of 10 the verdict is guilty. Given that a federal criminal trial takes $1.5 million to defend and that the prosecutor has all the weight and resources of the federal government behind then and the citizen has to rely on his own financial resources (which are likely to be frozen if they are well-heeled defendants), then that rate of conviction isn't surprising in the least. Federal criminal cases are totally asymmetric in favor of the federal government. As citizens, we always complain of well funded people prevailing in civil and criminal cases because of the money they have to defend themselves, but we ignore the well funded prosecution that US district attorneys have that allow them to consistently find people guilty who may not be. [1] http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2003/10/v26n3-7.pdf http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regul...

malandrew 14y ago

In fact, the situation today is probably the opposite. With plea bargains, I believe conviction rates are as high as 99.5% (IIRC). Somehow I find it hard to believe that 99.5% of people charged with a crime in this country are actually guilty. That seems dangerously high. I know that many innocent people are let off when a case or charges are dismissed, but of all those that do go to trial, more than a mere half percent must be innocent.

krichman 14y ago
99.5% of accused are found guilty? That's totalitarian.
- malandrew 14y ago
  Mainly because of plea bargaining. "Fewer than 10 percent of the criminal cases brought by the federal government each year are actually tried before juries with all of the accompanying procedural safeguards noted above. More than 90% of the criminal cases in America are never tried, much less proven, to juries. The overwhelming majority of individuals who are accused of crime forgo their constitutional rights and plead guilty."[1] From what I've read elsewhere, of the 10% or so that do go to trial, something like 9 times out of 10 the verdict is guilty. Given that a federal criminal trial takes $1.5 million to defend and that the prosecutor has all the weight and resources of the federal government behind then and the citizen has to rely on his own financial resources (which are likely to be frozen if they are well-heeled defendants), then that rate of conviction isn't surprising in the least. Federal criminal cases are totally asymmetric in favor of the federal government. As citizens, we always complain of well funded people prevailing in civil and criminal cases because of the money they have to defend themselves, but we ignore the well funded prosecution that US district attorneys have that allow them to consistently find people guilty who may not be. [1] http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2003/10/v26n3-7.pdf http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regul...