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Why is it so terrible to be punished for exercising your right to trial? Phrased another way, why not offer an incentive for avoiding an expensive trial? The
by shasta 11y ago
Why is it so terrible to be punished for exercising your right to trial? Phrased another way, why not offer an incentive for avoiding an expensive trial? The outrageous thing is the 20:1 ratio of punishment risked at trial to plea punishment. Offhand, it seems like there should be a cap of 2:1 or thereabouts on this ratio.
- FireBeyond 11y agoHow about for those factually innocent of the charges they face? There should not be a perverse incentive to "plead guilty (to something you did not do), or risk (even with your cap) twice the sentence if you exercise your rights. In this case, it is bad enough to be sentenced to _x_ for a crime you did not commit, and insult to injury to be sentenced to _2x_, let alone _20x_ for having the gall and audacity to demand a trial. Lesser, but still valid issues may remain when you are indeed guilty, but feel that plea bargaining or sentencing recommendations are out of proportion, unrealistic or whatever. "Hey, contest it. If you lose, you suffer. If you win you suffer, 'less'." Meanwhile the burden of "expensive" trials, lets be honest, falls largely on the accused, not the state, who has (for all intents and purposes) and unlimited budget (especially at the federal level) - while not strictly accurate, I realize, if there's enough determination, you will suffer that - how often does the government dismiss cases because they are "too expensive to prosecute"? Compare and contrast to the myriad of people who have no option but public defenders.
- thesteamboat 11y ago> how often does the government dismiss cases because they are "too expensive to prosecute"? Arguably that is what happened to banks that are "too big to jail" (with expenses to both the government and society at large). This does not make the situation seem any better or fairer.
- shasta 11y ago> How about for those factually innocent of the charges they face? For them, I'm ok leaving the punishment at _1x_. :) You're not being realistic. Structuring the court system so that the most expensive option to the public is also the option with best expected outcome for the one selecting options is obviously inefficient. And an inefficient justice system is a bad justice system. Many of the problems with the justice system today stem from lack of funding and you're just proposing to make the situation much worse.
- nickff 11y ago>"You're not being realistic. Structuring the court system so that the most expensive option to the public is also the option with best expected outcome for the one selecting options is obviously inefficient. And an inefficient justice system is a bad justice system." You have to define what you mean by efficiency before you can declare that one system is more efficient than another. I agree that the post you are replying to proposed an expensive system, but it may be more efficient if your efficiency metric takes time spent by innocent people in jail into account as a cost.
- shasta 11y agoIf your metric is time spent in jail by innocent people, then the optimum is obvious: don't prosecute anyone.
- FireBeyond 11y agoThat's absolutist, too. If we define a goal of 'zero jailed innocent people', even accepting it as a goal we can likely only ever asymptotically approach, then it shows an impedance mismatch between how to attain this, and the motivations of prosecutors which are not the same, but rather typically, 'show a high and increasing rate of convictions to show a toughness of crime'. This is not to say that all prosecutors are railroading sociopaths, of course not. But there is a valid question in the sense of "should a prosecutors role be to a) see the guilty punished, or b) to see the most convictions?".
- shasta 11y agoI don't disagree with any of this. My objection with this entire subthread has been the assertion that plea deals violate rights. I find that crazy. When presented with the facts of a case, a good prosecutor and defense attorney will be able to reasonably assess probabilities for the possible verdicts. Hammering out a plea that's around the average outcome can be beneficial to everyone.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago>Why is it so terrible to be punished for exercising your right Because rights shouldn't come with punishments for using them. This would be like the government being outright allowed to buy the votes from people by means of tax relief if they don't vote (which equates to a tax on those who do vote). Or imagine if the government instituted a tax of $300 per month for having any medium able to communicate (phone, computer with internet access, etc.) but then gave an equal amount tax relief to anyone who agreed to not communicate about certain topics. This would equate a tax on those forms of speech.
- shasta 11y agoI think this point of view is unrealistic and harmful. Look at what happens when you get a speeding ticket. In theory, you have a "right to a trial". But, of course, we can't afford to have everyone who gets a speeding ticket contesting it at trial. That would be prohibitively expensive. So instead, the courts impose hidden costs, making it a pain in the ass to go to trial over a speeding ticket. At best, you win a pyrrhic victory. I would greatly prefer an honest accounting of my actual rights and the costs associated to using them. I think we would have much better justice system if less lip service was paid to "rights" and more attention was paid to costs and outcomes.
- Retra 11y agoThe US Sixth amendment: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, [...]" So if everyone started demanding trials for speeding tickets, they would probably just switch them to civil offenses instead of criminal ones, where they already aren't.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago>I think we would have much better justice system if less lip service was paid to "rights" The only solution is for actual service was provided to rights. Anything else is unethical and will justify and necessitate extreme violence to overthrow.
- mikeash 11y agoBy the time you've said "Why is it so terrible to be punished for exercising your right" I would hope the answer would already be apparent. Being punished for exercising your rights is the opposite of having those rights.
- shasta 11y agoI realize that phrasing is getting me down voted. If I'd phrased it as "Why is it so terrible to be rewarded for not exercising your right", I probably wouldn't be getting down voted. But really, what's the difference?
- mikeash 11y agoIndeed, what is the difference? It's just phrasing. So if you can see why it's bad to be punished for exercising your rights, surely you can see why it's bad to be rewarded not to.
- shasta 11y agoI think I've been fairly clear that I find both acceptable. Thinking in terms of "rights" instead of costs and outcomes just increases the chances of a bad decision.