Letters To My Country

September 27, 2011

"The New York Times highlights the impact of mandatory minimum sentences on plea bargains during the last few decades. While defendants have always risked a more severe punishment by pleading not guilty (hence the basis for plea bargains), the penalty for insisting on a trial has increased dramatically as legislators have ratcheted up sentences since the 1980s. The Times cites an assault case in which a Florida man rejected a plea bargain that included a two-year sentence and now, after prosecutors ramped up the charges, faces life in prison if he is convicted. In another Florida assault case, a man who claimed to have acted in defense of his family turned down a deal that involved five years of probation, only to receive a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence after he was convicted. Laws requiring such sentences effectively give prosecutors, rather than judges, the power to determine a defendant’s punishment by deciding what charges to bring. Largely as a result of this shift in power, the Times says, the percentage of cases resolved through plea bargains has increased substantially."

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The Escalating Penalty for Asserting Your Right to a Trial - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

My own personal observation: Among the many sad consequences of this is that we are no longer producing great criminal defense lawyers. Because it almost never makes sense to risk taking a case to trial (even for the innocent), young lawyers get experience in plea negotiation, not trial skills. And so, even if you want to go to trial, the pool of talent to defend you is drying up.

(via jeffmiller)

^ And all of this is precisely the reason I’m in school to become a criminal defense attorney.

(via statehate)

While I agree that the excerpt is disturbing (and one more reason we desperately need criminal justice reform in this country), Jeff’s observation with respect to lawyers is incorrect. My experience has been the exact opposite, actually. I’m in my 2nd year of law school and I couldn’t even tell you what the procedure is in my County for filing a plea bargain right now. But I can write a mean motion to suppress evidence on the basis of an unreasonable search and seizure incident to detainment as defined by Robinson v. United States and Whren v. United States (if you get arrested you’re basically fucked because everything’s admissible under Robinson since the Conservatives on the Court basically shit all over probable cause when a search is incident to an arrest. But searches incident to temporary detainment are still subject to probable cause standards).

The D.A.’s I’ve talked to say that Pleas Bargains exist because it’s impossible for the D.A’s office to bring every major criminal charge to trial. Believe it or not, most of the time they’ve actually got solid evidence since our criminal justice system tends to breed an underclass of apathetic repeat defenders. But most D.A.’s don’t have the resources to bring every case to trial. So even when the case is open and shut, they’ll talk to the defense attorney (often the Public Defender in the case of repeat offenders), and cut a deal to avoid a trial. Most offenders take the plea bargain because they know they’ll lose if their case goes to trial. So most plea bargains actually happen due to the intersection of 1) compelling evidence of guilt, and 2) lack of resources (including human resources) in the D.A.’s office.

There are two options to fix this, of course: increase funding (and thus taxes) to D.A.’s and Public Defenders, or, you can, in a word: Decriminalize. The lack of resources in D.A.’s offices might have something to do with the fact that we continue to wage war on non-violent Drug Offenders. Everytime we criminalize human behavior, we increase the aggregate caseload of every D.A. in the country. Ending the Drug War and moving to harm-prevention policies would not only save us a ton of money, but it would reduce the burden on both Public Defenders and D.A.’s significantly enough to allow them to actually, you know, do justice, instead of the half-assed system we have now.

(via statehate)

9:25pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZMMjnxA0nB3z

(Notes: 61)