Plea bargains

[ksnecktieman]

   Does our criminal justice system work better or worse because of people pleading guilty to a lesser charge than they are charged with?
   Does the punishment more often fit the crime?
   Do innocent people suffer because they are charged with something and it is easier to "plead out" than to stand and fight, with legal costs, and stress and time lost, etc.

    Do you personally consider it a sign of guilt if someone accepts a deal?

[Jamisjockey]

If you plea a deal, you're guilty.  Whether you're really guilty or not.

Sad thing is that many DA's use pleas as a way to bolster thier conviction rates.  Plea bargains don't require the burden of proof that a jury trial does.

[BridgeRunner]

Does our criminal justice system work better or worse because of people pleading guilty to a lesser charge than they are charged with?

It works faster and cheaper than the alternative. 

Does the punishment more often fit the crime?

No.  But the alternative would be prohibitively expensive.

Do innocent people suffer because they are charged with something and it is easier to "plead out" than to stand and fight, with legal costs, and stress and time lost, etc.

Yes.

Do you personally consider it a sign of guilt if someone accepts a deal?

Nope.  But I sure as hell don't consider it a sign of innocence, either.

[roo_ster]

I always thought it would be a great way to shake out what crimes we really cared about if we had to try anyone before stuffing them in prison, fining them, & whatnot.

[Torchman]

Back in 98 I went thru a potential DV issue during a divorce. Without getting into the nuts and bolts, I was COMPLETELY innocent. I DID get cuffed, a ride to jail and released. OH!! And I was Active Duty Coast Guard and a Boarding Officer. So come court day, the Prosecutor offers me a deal.. 2 days community service, 65 dollar fine...and keep my career and ability to carry weapons. The alternative was a potential 10,000 fine and a year in jail, not to mention the whole Lautenberg stigma.  What would you do ...even KNOWING you were 100% innocent? Just sayin..

[AJ Dual]

What would you do ...even KNOWING you were 100% innocent? Just sayin..

Something worth the conviction.

I've already had that internal dialogue with myself.

[Torchman]

LOL AJ.....I kicked a sack of empty soda cans....In hind sight it should have been a DIFFERENT can!!! And no, I do not condone or tolerate uneccessary violence..

[ksnecktieman]

Our local paper lists police files, a daily arrest record. I see

    Arrested for possesion of a narcotic, possesion of drug paraphenalia, possesion for sale, possesion within 1,000 yards of a school, no drug tax stamp, failure to cooperate with law enforcement personell.
   My brain processes that to be a five dollar bag of marijuana, with a pack of zig zag papers in a backpack and telling a cop he can not search the back pack.
   He has a good reason not to stand and fight, a plea to misdemeanor possesion and a 6 month suspended sentence with 100 hours of community service. (And of course the police get to keep whatever cash and valuables he had with him because it was proceeds from sales.)
   He CAN NOT stand and fight if the search was legal or not. If the officer had cause or not. A failure might cost him years.

    This is the way I see the system, and I do not think it is right.

 I do not mean for this to get into a drug thing, it is the same with gun stuff or alcohol, or anything else people get arrested for.

[T.O.M.]

I was a prosecuting attorney for 12 years in a jurisdiction considered to be a "no plea bargain" system.  In plain english, what you weree charged with was what you went to trial on or admitted to.  For a prosecutor to change a charge, he or she had to explain to a judge the factual reason for the change, and the judge could approve or reject the change.  On the good side, as a prosecutor knowing you were going to have to prove what you charged, you made sure you had good, appropriate charges.  On the down side, our office went to trial more often than some of the big city prosecutors.

Now that I'm on the bench, I've seen the system change.  The prosecutor and judges are allowing some plea bargaining.  I can see the effects.  Charges aren't as solid, and some are pure garbage thrown at a defendant to up the ante, so to speak, and push for a deal.  I see wasted court time, because many defense attorneys will reject all deals until the morning of trial, at which point the best possible deal will be offered to avoid trial.

That's what I see as the biggest problem with plea bargaining...the issue of guilt/innocence becomes irrlelvant.  Instead, it becomes a question of what can both sides agree on.  I think the system suffers as a result.

[crt360]

Charges aren't as solid, and some are pure garbage thrown at a defendant to up the ante, so to speak, and push for a deal.

That's what I see as the biggest problem with plea bargaining...the issue of guilt/innocence becomes irrlelvant.  Instead, it becomes a question of what can both sides agree on.  I think the system suffers as a result.

That's been a problem here for a long time.  What makes it even worse, in Texas at least, is if the defendant accepts a plea offer on the smallest charge on the fabricated laundry list, which happens all the time for obvious reasons, their record will contain all of the garbage charges, indicating only that they were dismissed due to a plea of guilty on another offense.  Anyone who doesn't know how the system works and later sees that defendant's criminal record is likely to think the dismissed charges had some credibility.

[Jamisjockey]

That's been a problem here for a long time.  What makes it even worse, in Texas at least, is if the defendant accepts a plea offer on the smallest charge on the fabricated laundry list, which happens all the time for obvious reasons, their record will contain all of the garbage charges, indicating only that they were dismissed due to a plea of guilty on another offense.  Anyone who doesn't know how the system works and later sees that defendant's criminal record is likely to think the dismissed charges had some credibility.

Becomes legalized slander.  Gotta love it.

[De Selby]

crt hit on something that ought to be changed about reporting - if it hasn't been proven or admitted, it ought not to be reported to anyone except a police investigator.  Otherwise, you get exactly what crt360 is talking about.

You don't necessarily need to do anything to be charged, yet having a series of charges on your record is clearly damaging.  It shouldn't be reportable.

[taurusowner]

The criminal justics systems would totally and utterly collapse without plea bargains.  Plain and simple.  Even with them, public defenders and judges are overworked to the max.  If every single case went to trial, we would need 100 times the amount of lawyers we have now.  It is utterly impossible to have any system of justice without plea bargains.

[De Selby]

The criminal justics systems would totally and utterly collapse without plea bargains.  Plain and simple.  Even with them, public defenders and judges are overworked to the max.  If every single case went to trial, we would need 100 times the amount of lawyers we have now.  It is utterly impossible to have any system of justice without plea bargains.

This is not quite true - you can do it, you just can't get this many convictions/imprisonments without plea bargaining. 

Other countries do without plea bargaining because they have incarceration and criminalization rates that are way below the US rate. 

When you need to lock up a few percentage points of the population every year though, yeah, you need something to streamline the process.

[taurusowner]

This is not quite true - you can do it, you just can't get this many convictions/imprisonments without plea bargaining. 

Other countries do without plea bargaining because they have incarceration and criminalization rates that are way below the US rate. 

When you need to lock up a few percentage points of the population every year though, yeah, you need something to streamline the process.

Other countries also do not have the same rights to legal representation and fair trial by jury as we do.  The ability to railroad somebody streamlines the process too.  That doesn't make it right.

[De Selby]

Other countries also do not have the same rights to legal representation and fair trial by jury as we do.  The ability to railroad somebody streamlines the process too.  That doesn't make it right.

There are places with reasonably equivalent protections, but the key ingredient is that they charge and incarcerate a vastly smaller proportion of their populations.  That's why they can do without plea bargaining, even where they require extensive process and jury trials (as is the case here in Australia, for example, for any serious offence.) 

They just plain don't put as many people into the system, by any measure.

Without plea bargaining, the US would probably not be able to top Russia and China for the world's number 1 incarcerator/criminaliser.  Now those systems maintain their high levels of criminalisation with railroading; we use plea bargaining, and it actually works better, because we can charge and imprison many, many more people than the Russians and Chinese.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

There are places with reasonably equivalent protections,


where?

[De Selby]

There are places with reasonably equivalent protections,


where?

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and to some extent the UK.  The main qualitative difference is in search/seizure law, not presumptions of innocence or trial procedures.

[ksnecktieman]

   Ragnar? The way I see it a plea bargain oriented system is nothing but railroading. At an arrest the charges are stacked up, and the individual has to decide to go to court with the hope he can beat them all, or play chicken with the prosecutor on how much he has to accept

[T.O.M.]

   Ragnar? The way I see it a plea bargain oriented system is nothing but railroading. At an arrest the charges are stacked up, and the individual has to decide to go to court with the hope he can beat them all, or play chicken with the prosecutor on how much he has to accept

I don't find this statement to be entirely accurate.  Railroading implies that the accused has done nothing wrong, and the entire line of charges is a set-up.  Having spent 12 years as a prosecuting attorney, I can say that I never saw someone actually charged when there was no basis.  That said, I don't like plea bargaining.  It encourages a prosecutor to stack charges in order to give himself bargaining room, and also encourages the defense to avoid admitting to any charges until the last minute, in hopes of getting the best possible deal.  Neither of these is a great way to properly handle criminal charges.

I was fortunate to work in a jurisdiction where plea bargaining was not permitted.  A reduction in charges had to be based upon something other than the desire to get an admission, and the judge had to approve the change.  The benefit was that as a prosecutor, I charged only what I knew I could prove at trial, and defense attorneys knew that.  So, with that in mind, defendants focused more on the sentence than the charges.

[MechAg94]

It encourages a prosecutor to stack charges in order to give himself bargaining room, and also encourages the defense to avoid admitting to any charges until the last minute, in hopes of getting the best possible deal.

I think that is a good thing.  I dislike what I think is essentially playing politics with criminal justice. 

[taurusowner]

So should every case go to trial?

[zahc]

The criminal justics systems would totally and utterly collapse without plea bargains.

Oh, darn, what a tragedy it would be if our "criminal justice" system collapsed. How is that an argument against the completely unacceptable status quo? Injustice and corruption are acceptable as long as it is--indeed because it is--convenient for the "criminal justice system"?

Try this: "It's necessary for EPA to have authority to levy regulatory fines and enact extracongressional regulations that have the force of law. If congress had to vote on every regulation, our legislative branch would utterly collapse."

No, if the EPA didn't exist in the first place there would be no problem. Same with 90% of criminal convictions. Streamlining the process of charging people with crimes is only an encouragement to expand criminal law.

[MechAg94]

So should every case go to trial?

Yes.  

The better question is:  Should police arrest and book a person for everything they see that might be against the law?  Should prosecutors press charges for every case?  Should both of them think a bit more carefully about what is really against the law and what is worth prosecuting?

I don't think they should press charges at all unless they have enough to go into trial with.  I don't like the idea of throwing a boat load of charges at people in the hopes that a few will stick.  Building on what Chris said, it encourages sloppiness and politicking with people lives. 

[Jamisjockey]

So should every case go to trial?

Nope.  You should be allowed to plea guilty to a charge.
The real issue is throwing a milltion charges at someone and hoping that they will plea out under the weight of the charges to something lesser.  It encourages DA's to press forward with shakey cases, and to accept pleas to bolster their conviction rates. 
From there, its well accepted practice to plea to a new, lesser charge.  Thats an even bigger travesty in my book.