9 ms·

This wouldn't be a problem if people actually went to trial. This whole concept of plea bargaining is immoral - we can't say you have a right to trial by jury,

This wouldn't be a problem if people actually went to trial. This whole concept of plea bargaining is immoral - we can't say you have a right to trial by jury, but if you exercise that right you run the risk of having the charges be 10x the plea bargain. If the plea bargain is enough to provide justice, then that's what the defendant should face in court.

limeyx 12y ago
Indeed. Sickening
researcher88 12y ago
Even Justin Bieber took a plea deal in his DUI case when it appears his BAC was .014 and the cops lied or exaggerated the facts during the arrest. Perhaps he was still guilty of reckless driving but there's no consequences for the cop who seems to have lied. He likely could had won the case or forced the prosecutor to drop the charges. Beyond facing a greater sentence, to fight the most minor of misdemeanor charges will cost $2,000 to $5,000 for a lawyer or just pay $250 and get it reduced to an infraction like jaywalking. It makes a mockery of the idea of justice.
- EGreg 12y ago
  I think the whole system of inadmissible evidence and plea bargains is unfair and dishonest. If a cop decides to lie or break into a house, what they find should be admissible, but they should also face the consequences of breaking and entering, armed robbery or whatever. In fact, these consequences would be more severe for public servants like cops. If the cop wants to lie to get a conviction, they should be able to do it BUT also pay for their lie. The mitigating circumstances would be considered and the cop might get off with less, but they should be under the same law as everybody else! If they want to get the guy so bad that they are willing to face prison themselves for a few years for entering without a warrant to photograph the smoking gun, they should be able to do it. This way the truth and justice actually wins out. As opposed to murderers getting off on a technicality or cops lying with impunity and ruining innocent people's lives. Of course, the above would still not obviate the need for entrapment defense etc.
  - minot 12y ago
    > In fact, these consequences would be more severe for public servants like cops. I absolutely agree with this. Police officers need to uphold a higher standard. > If the cop wants to lie to get a conviction, they should be able to do it BUT also pay for their lie. The problem is that while an individual police officer might be not very willing to do things like write false and questionable tickets, police administrators and local government people would love that extra income without having to raise taxes (or do other things that invite scrutiny or would make them look bad). I bet if things like these were admissible, there would be pressure to go get them and fabricate the backstory on how the evidence/information was obtained. Granted things like this already happen but I am afraid this might even make the blue code of silence stronger. Individual police officers are people and have ethics and morals. However, they are subject to bribery, coercion, and promise of a reward for conforming like anyone else. I'm afraid the risks of allowing fruits of poisonous trees would outweigh the benefits.
    - tajen 12y ago
      Step 0 of fairness. Separate the incentive from the enforcement. Fines shouldn't benefit to the same entity who pays the police.
  - koenigdavidmj 12y ago
    It would take a lot to convince a prosecutor to charge a cop trying to help that prosecutor's case.
    - sanderjd 12y ago
      Just spit-balling, what if we had a competitive prosecutorial system? Instead of a single DAs office, two or more with aligned, but not shared, incentives.
      - minot 12y ago
        Follow the money. Who pays for it? How do we pay them?
ghaff 12y ago
Then why would anyone agree to a plea bargain? (Which isn't to say that stacking up a lot of questionable charges to force a plea bargain is reasonable or fair. However, I don't see anything wrong with the basic idea of plea bargains.)
- CHY872 12y ago
  There are plenty of well documented cases of people who are innocent pleading guilty to lesser charges because regardless of innocence, there's still a good chance that they'll lose in front of a jury. Say the prosecutor offers you 6 months for a plea, or 3 years in jail if it goes to court. Unless you can place odds of winning at 85%+, even the rational would take the plea. Chances are, most of the people who face such deals are poor, probably not particularly clever and will have terrible lawyers. So the plea looks increasingly the best choice, even if they didn't do the crime, or even if only a few of the charges will be able to stick.
  - digi_owl 12y ago
    Never mind that virtually nobody is "rational" in the game theory sense. As such, people will go for the sure thing even if they have high odds of winning. We are wired to be risk adverse to the extreme.
    - UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
      Define "winning." Is this what you mean: - Get arrested. Lose your job. - Spend 3-12 months in jail awaiting trial. - Spend $50,000-100,000 on lawyers and legal fees. - Spend another 1-3 months in jail during the trial stages. - Get found "innocent." - Get release only to find that the local TV shows splashed your mugshot all over the TV related to whatever crime you're accused, reputation ruined, you have to move. So now you're destitute, homeless, jobless, and lost all told two years of your life. But at least you "won" the trial. Big win that...
      - ecspike 12y ago
dm3 12y ago
There's a publication comparing plea bargaining system of US with the tortures commonly applied in medieval courts to get convictions: http://www.ibccrim.org.br/DPE2014/docs/flavio/torture.pdf http://www.ibccrim.org.br/DPE2014/docs/flavio/torture.pdf In short, the way the plea bargaining system developed was due to the jury system being too ineffective and time consuming in producing convictions. Thus the workaround which forces innocent people into accepting charges.
UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
This is exactly why in many other Western countries pleas are essentially non-existent in criminal prosecutions. The whole plea system creates an environment where miscarriages of justice can easily occur (e.g. innocent pleading guilty due to the cost of a trial/time they would spend in jail awaiting trial, or other prisoners false testifying in exchange for a lighter sentence in their own crime). But Wikipedia covers why the plea system is horrifying is pretty great detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargain The American justice system from a foreigner's perspective just seems like a revolving door punishment system with almost no reform, and one where money plays a MASSIVE part. If you're rich you won't spend any time in jail, and you likely won't be convicted even if guilty. If you're poor you can be innocent and still have to plead guilty because you lack the $100K you'd need to mount a real defence (and you'd still lose). I genuinely believe there are some good individuals in the US justice system, but most of the people at the top and the politicised prosecutors, politicians, and judges just ruin it. You could easily improve American justice tomorrow by scraping most pleas, re-introducing the right to a speedy trial (e.g. 12 months in jail to be found innocent is immoral/unjust), and increasing public defender funding significantly (at least 20x).
- sanderjd 12y ago
  Sadly, we don't need good ideas for how the system should function – lots of people have lots of those – we need good strategies for affecting change in the current system toward those ideas. Just to illustrate using your ideas (which I'm absolutely all for), all three of them cost public money. We would have more trials requiring more time in front of judges, but they would need to be speedier, so we would simply need to pay more judges salaries. A similar calculation suggests we would need to pay more public defenders, and if I'm interpreting your last point correctly, we would also want to pay them 20% more than we do currently. So we need a strategy for selling the tax increases at least at the state level – because the districts most affected by these cost increases are probably the least wealthy – and perhaps the federal level. Not many people will care enough that we aren't treating criminals (which is what people who have been arrested are, to most people) well enough to pay extra taxes. So I guess, what's the strategy to push us onto a path outside this spiral?
mellavora 12y ago
ummm, actually it is closer to 20x.
tsotha 12y ago
Yeah. You know something's wrong when 98% of federal cases are pled out.

limeyx 12y ago

Indeed. Sickening

researcher88 12y ago

Even Justin Bieber took a plea deal in his DUI case when it appears his BAC was .014 and the cops lied or exaggerated the facts during the arrest. Perhaps he was still guilty of reckless driving but there's no consequences for the cop who seems to have lied. He likely could had won the case or forced the prosecutor to drop the charges. Beyond facing a greater sentence, to fight the most minor of misdemeanor charges will cost $2,000 to $5,000 for a lawyer or just pay $250 and get it reduced to an infraction like jaywalking. It makes a mockery of the idea of justice.

EGreg 12y ago
I think the whole system of inadmissible evidence and plea bargains is unfair and dishonest. If a cop decides to lie or break into a house, what they find should be admissible, but they should also face the consequences of breaking and entering, armed robbery or whatever. In fact, these consequences would be more severe for public servants like cops. If the cop wants to lie to get a conviction, they should be able to do it BUT also pay for their lie. The mitigating circumstances would be considered and the cop might get off with less, but they should be under the same law as everybody else! If they want to get the guy so bad that they are willing to face prison themselves for a few years for entering without a warrant to photograph the smoking gun, they should be able to do it. This way the truth and justice actually wins out. As opposed to murderers getting off on a technicality or cops lying with impunity and ruining innocent people's lives. Of course, the above would still not obviate the need for entrapment defense etc.
- minot 12y ago
  > In fact, these consequences would be more severe for public servants like cops. I absolutely agree with this. Police officers need to uphold a higher standard. > If the cop wants to lie to get a conviction, they should be able to do it BUT also pay for their lie. The problem is that while an individual police officer might be not very willing to do things like write false and questionable tickets, police administrators and local government people would love that extra income without having to raise taxes (or do other things that invite scrutiny or would make them look bad). I bet if things like these were admissible, there would be pressure to go get them and fabricate the backstory on how the evidence/information was obtained. Granted things like this already happen but I am afraid this might even make the blue code of silence stronger. Individual police officers are people and have ethics and morals. However, they are subject to bribery, coercion, and promise of a reward for conforming like anyone else. I'm afraid the risks of allowing fruits of poisonous trees would outweigh the benefits.
  - tajen 12y ago
    Step 0 of fairness. Separate the incentive from the enforcement. Fines shouldn't benefit to the same entity who pays the police.
- koenigdavidmj 12y ago
  It would take a lot to convince a prosecutor to charge a cop trying to help that prosecutor's case.
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    Just spit-balling, what if we had a competitive prosecutorial system? Instead of a single DAs office, two or more with aligned, but not shared, incentives.
    - minot 12y ago
      Follow the money. Who pays for it? How do we pay them?

ghaff 12y ago

Then why would anyone agree to a plea bargain? (Which isn't to say that stacking up a lot of questionable charges to force a plea bargain is reasonable or fair. However, I don't see anything wrong with the basic idea of plea bargains.)

CHY872 12y ago
There are plenty of well documented cases of people who are innocent pleading guilty to lesser charges because regardless of innocence, there's still a good chance that they'll lose in front of a jury. Say the prosecutor offers you 6 months for a plea, or 3 years in jail if it goes to court. Unless you can place odds of winning at 85%+, even the rational would take the plea. Chances are, most of the people who face such deals are poor, probably not particularly clever and will have terrible lawyers. So the plea looks increasingly the best choice, even if they didn't do the crime, or even if only a few of the charges will be able to stick.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Never mind that virtually nobody is "rational" in the game theory sense. As such, people will go for the sure thing even if they have high odds of winning. We are wired to be risk adverse to the extreme.
  - UnoriginalGuy 12y ago
    Define "winning." Is this what you mean: - Get arrested. Lose your job. - Spend 3-12 months in jail awaiting trial. - Spend $50,000-100,000 on lawyers and legal fees. - Spend another 1-3 months in jail during the trial stages. - Get found "innocent." - Get release only to find that the local TV shows splashed your mugshot all over the TV related to whatever crime you're accused, reputation ruined, you have to move. So now you're destitute, homeless, jobless, and lost all told two years of your life. But at least you "won" the trial. Big win that...
    - ecspike 12y ago

dm3 12y ago

There's a publication comparing plea bargaining system of US with the tortures commonly applied in medieval courts to get convictions: http://www.ibccrim.org.br/DPE2014/docs/flavio/torture.pdf http://www.ibccrim.org.br/DPE2014/docs/flavio/torture.pdf In short, the way the plea bargaining system developed was due to the jury system being too ineffective and time consuming in producing convictions. Thus the workaround which forces innocent people into accepting charges.

UnoriginalGuy 12y ago

This is exactly why in many other Western countries pleas are essentially non-existent in criminal prosecutions. The whole plea system creates an environment where miscarriages of justice can easily occur (e.g. innocent pleading guilty due to the cost of a trial/time they would spend in jail awaiting trial, or other prisoners false testifying in exchange for a lighter sentence in their own crime). But Wikipedia covers why the plea system is horrifying is pretty great detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargain The American justice system from a foreigner's perspective just seems like a revolving door punishment system with almost no reform, and one where money plays a MASSIVE part. If you're rich you won't spend any time in jail, and you likely won't be convicted even if guilty. If you're poor you can be innocent and still have to plead guilty because you lack the $100K you'd need to mount a real defence (and you'd still lose). I genuinely believe there are some good individuals in the US justice system, but most of the people at the top and the politicised prosecutors, politicians, and judges just ruin it. You could easily improve American justice tomorrow by scraping most pleas, re-introducing the right to a speedy trial (e.g. 12 months in jail to be found innocent is immoral/unjust), and increasing public defender funding significantly (at least 20x).

sanderjd 12y ago
Sadly, we don't need good ideas for how the system should function – lots of people have lots of those – we need good strategies for affecting change in the current system toward those ideas. Just to illustrate using your ideas (which I'm absolutely all for), all three of them cost public money. We would have more trials requiring more time in front of judges, but they would need to be speedier, so we would simply need to pay more judges salaries. A similar calculation suggests we would need to pay more public defenders, and if I'm interpreting your last point correctly, we would also want to pay them 20% more than we do currently. So we need a strategy for selling the tax increases at least at the state level – because the districts most affected by these cost increases are probably the least wealthy – and perhaps the federal level. Not many people will care enough that we aren't treating criminals (which is what people who have been arrested are, to most people) well enough to pay extra taxes. So I guess, what's the strategy to push us onto a path outside this spiral?

mellavora 12y ago

ummm, actually it is closer to 20x.

tsotha 12y ago

Yeah. You know something's wrong when 98% of federal cases are pled out.