Plea-Bargaining, is it right ?

[DeletedUser16008]

Should plea bargaining, by which people plead guilty offences in order to get lesser sentences, continue ?

Emerging in the mid-19th century as a method of speeding up court proceedings, to ‘plea bargain’ is to obtain a lesser sentence by pleading guilty to an offence less grave than the worst one with which one is charged (often, the sentence is shorter the earlier such a plea is entered). Whilst there isn’t an official plea bargaining system as such in the UK, in reality such compromises between defence and prosecution are common: and in addition to negotiation on accepting lesser offences, the "discount" for pleading guilty rather than contesting a charge at trial is ubiquitous and is openly discussed in legal textbooks. Plea bargaining is now the pre-eminent method of case disposal in the USA.

Plea bargaining is soft on crime. It means people aren’t properly punished for crimes they’ve committed. The British practice of discounting for a guilty plea is also soft on crime. A sentence should be a sentence. The fact that the guilty admit they’re guilty doesn’t change their guilt in any way. Both approaches reward the career criminal who is happy to play the system and it results in sentences that are far more lenient than the perpetrators deserve.

 

[DeletedUser]

Your argument fails to recognize the bigger problem with plea bargaining, which is that it is used by prosecutors as a utility to extort a guilty plea.

In the U.S., prosecutors pose multiple charges against the defendant (far more than what is warranted or what can be reasonably won in a court of law). He then chats up the defending attorney and poses a plea bargain, essentially playing a game with the defendant. In this manner, many "innocent" people opt for a plea bargain rather than take the risk of going to court.

In the 1990's, "thought crimes" (commonly known as crimes of intent) started landing in the books, which truly muddied the waters and provided ample ammo for prosecutors to extort a plea.


Also, because of the inclusion of the plea bargaining process, expeditious processing has disappeared altogether. Invariably, because of the plea bargaining process, defendants waive their right to a speedy trial. The plea bargaining process can drag out a case by a year or more.

More on this later, if I have time.

 

[DeletedUser16008]

So your saying in the US the prosecution attempts to blackmail a plea bargain by multiple charges that are either unwarranted or unlikely to stand up in a court of law ?

This achieves what exactly ? a higher success statistic to feed to the people or what ? I confess im a bit bemused if it costs more to plea bargain and go through to conclusion why the system would encourage it or is this about fees etc or something ?

Here the deal is done to speed up the process, save money and pad the conviction statistics not slow it down.

 

[DeletedUser]

Padding the conviction statistics is indeed one of the motivators for the extortion associated with plea bargains. Saving money may have been the intent when implementing plea bargains, but it results in defendants relinquishing their right to a speedy trial just to see what their defending attorney can work out with the prosecution, precisely because what is presented on the table as to the total charges is ugly, outrageous even.

The fallacy in your thought here is that you think the charges are unwarranted or unlikely to stand up in court. As I indicated, there are plenty of "intent" crimes now on the books, which means you can be charged with crimes in which you are alleged to have "thought" or "considered" bad deeds. The prosecution's effectiveness on such allegations is largely dependent upon the social stigma associated with such allegations, and thus the impact such allegations would have on a jury, or on an "electable" judge (if you opt out of a jury trial). Electable judges are tasked to demonstrate they are "tough on crime" if they intend on being re-elected, so they historically convict for "thought crimes" even when there is no other evidence than an inference.

The reason such additional charges are put on the table is, indeed, to force a plea bargain to pad the conviction rates of the respective prosecuting attorney, which in turn increases their sale-ability and their ability to get hired into a reputable private firm or promoted within the public prosecutor's office. There are other reasons, of course, such as recognizing the allegations are weak, but wanting to force someone onto some sort of registration (sex, arson, etc). Indeed, one of the problems presently being hushed is that there are non-sex, non-arson persons who were plea-bargained into having to participate in the registration process, and thus have themselves listed as such. As well, plea bargaining becomes problematic in such cases because a plea-bargain constitutes a person pleading nolo contendere (no contest) or even pleading guilty without having been determined guilty by a court of law, not for the purposes of justice, but instead for other purposes (as mentioned previously). Notwithstanding, the registration issue is itself largely considered to be unconstitutional, so when compounded with coercion to obtain cooperation --- we then have the questions of, "what is right?" and, "by any means?"

No, the present state of laws in the U.S., in many States within the U.S., provides ample opportunity for a prosecutor to pose charges on someone that may very well result in a conviction (as one prosecutor mused, "throw everything at them and see what sticks"), but which may not survive appeals. The plea bargain process can cut down on time in a case, and it is argued that money is saved, but should that be a "right" motivator for allowing government employees the ability to coerce a confession or acceptance of penalty (nolo contendere)?

 

[DeletedUser16008]

Padding the conviction statistics is indeed one of the motivators for the extortion associated with plea bargains. Saving money may have been the intent when implementing plea bargains, but it results in defendants relinquishing their right to a speedy trial just to see what their defending attorney can work out with the prosecution, precisely because what is presented on the table as to the total charges is ugly, outrageous even.

The fallacy in your thought here is that you think the charges are unwarranted or unlikely to stand up in court. As I indicated, there are plenty of "intent" crimes now on the books, which means you can be charged with crimes in which you are alleged to have "thought" or "considered" bad deeds.

Tis an increasingly kooky world we live in, especially over there it seems. Still dont see an error in my original post re plea bargaining allowing lesser terms being continued, in principle its a bad message to send out one can do little time for a crime and do so by say shopping accomplices etc who may have not committed the main crime yet go down for a longer spell than the plea bargainer..

Also we have a be a good boy inside policy here that allows a very high % of a sentence to be chopped off in general. Sucks big time when a sentence of say 7 years turns out to be 3 or 4 .....

 

[DeletedUser]

The degree of plea bargaining is based on the severity of the crime, the history of criminal offenses, and the amount of evidence available. The more dependencies (witnesses), the weaker the evidence, the more likely the prosecuting attorney is going to pose a mild plea bargain. To counter this, they trump up additional charges to weigh up their plea offer.

 

[DeletedUser]

If there are so many negatives to plea bargaining, than why does the government use such a thing? I mean, if it's not doing what it was made for (speedy trial), than what is the point of such a thing?

 

[DeletedUser]

Once something is in place, how easy do you think it is to remove?

 

[DeletedUser]

Accepting liability for a lesser crime in order to escape the risk of conviction for a greater one? I think even innocent people might do that, so I don't see it as necessarily being soft on criminals.

As for sentence remission for good behaviour - do you also think it is wrong for people who pay fines promptly to be 'rewarded' with a smaller penalty?

 

[DeletedUser]

I had looked into this myself a bit a while back and I thought I found that a majority of innocent people being convicted had plead guilty. I swear the Innocence Project (I love those guys) had posted higher figures. Now I see this (which is a few years old):

Of the 227 wrongful convictions overturned in the United States by DNA testing, 12 defendants pled guilty to crimes they didn’t commit. Almost always, they pled guilty to avoid the threat of longer sentences – or in some cases the death penalty. False confessions and admissions of guilt are a leading cause of wrongful convictions, and one Nebraska prosecutor recently said the possibility of injustice was one reason he would stop accepting plea bargains altogether starting February 1.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/An_End_to_Plea_Bargains.php

That's only 5.3%, which doesn't seem too bad. Or is that just about pleading guilty being a big hurdle to getting an appeal? Come to think of it, I thought pleading guilty included waiving your right to appeal. Is it just a matter of needing overwhelming new evidence, e.g. DNA? I know there have been cases where people have plead guilty and someone else later confessed to that crime and the innocent person has stayed in prison for years.

 

[DeletedUser16008]

Accepting liability for a lesser crime in order to escape the risk of conviction for a greater one? I think even innocent people might do that, so I don't see it as necessarily being soft on criminals.

As for sentence remission for good behaviour - do you also think it is wrong for people who pay fines promptly to be 'rewarded' with a smaller penalty?

A fine is not the same as a prison sentence Eli. If 2 people commit a murder would you say it is ok for 1 to do a lighter term just because he shopped his partner even though both have committed the murder equally ?

 

[DeletedUser]

A fine is not the same as a prison sentence Eli. If 2 people commit a murder would you say it is ok for 1 to do a lighter term just because he shopped his partner even though both have committed the murder equally ?

No plea bargain could mean both walk, but from the wrongfully convicted innocent angle, innocent people have plea bargained and implicated other innocents.

 

[DeletedUser]

A fine is not the same as a prison sentence Eli. If 2 people commit a murder would you say it is ok for 1 to do a lighter term just because he shopped his partner even though both have committed the murder equally ?

Well I know a parking fine is not the same as a murder rap, thank you. The question is "are the same principles of justice applicable in both cases?".
In the example you give, if the testimony of the plea-bargainer helped to secure a conviction then I think a case could be made for it, yes.
I suppose plea-bargains occur for a number of reasons - to secure a more certain but less severe sentence in the event of a conviction, to save court time, to reward co-operation by the accused, or shorten time spent on remand.
I wouldn't blanket generalise - each case could and should be treated on its own merits.

 

[DeletedUser]

That's only 5.3%, which doesn't seem too bad. Or is that just about pleading guilty being a big hurdle to getting an appeal? Come to think of it, I thought pleading guilty included waiving your right to appeal. Is it just a matter of needing overwhelming new evidence, e.g. DNA? I know there have been cases where people have plead guilty and someone else later confessed to that crime and the innocent person has stayed in prison for years.

Yes, pleading guilty is a big hurdle to getting an appeal. Part of the process for obtaining a plea bargain, is to make a confession. If you fail to do so, your plea bargain will not likely be recognized by the judge. Remember, a plea bargain is between the prosecutor and the defendant, not between the judge and others. The judge honors a plea bargain if he agrees to it, but without a confession of an officer, it will not likely be honored by the judge. This is one of the reasons it is so incredibly wrong, particularly since it is traditionally not indicated to the person agreeing to a plea bargain, until they agree in court to a plea bargain, that they are then directed to make a confession to ensure the judge honors the plea bargain.

The confession, along with the pleading of guilt (in a plea bargain) makes the appeal almost impossible, thus follow-up after such is unlikely and innocent or guilty remain convicted. That's one of the "appealing" facets to prosecutors of obtaining a plea bargain over a normal court proceeding.

It's also important to understand that if you appeal your plea, you are essentially appealing the judge's decision, which means you are subject once again to being prosecuted for all the crap that the prosecuting attorney was threatening with, and with a far less likelihood of being provided a plea bargain option. It makes it even worse when you consider you have to pose your first appeal within 6 months of being convicted. If you do so, you remove the decision and are subject to being charged all over again. If you fail to do so, you cannot then appeal in the future, when evidence in your defense, or full confessions of deception from all the alleged victims, is obtained.

Now, there's reasons why this is good, such as later coercing your previous victims to obtain confessions of deception, or fabricating of evidence in support of your defense, but all others, those who went through a court trial and were found guilty, can do that --- plea bargainers on the other hand are tied down and not provided such acts (criminal or otherwise) in obtaining their defense unless they were somehow able to do so within the first 6 months while being imprisoned or under parole.

I wouldn't blanket generalise - each case could and should be treated on its own merits.

And yet plea bargains are posed in almost every case.