Posted on 03/12/2012 4:12:39 PM PDT by MetaThought
More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury.
AFTER years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?” ...
I was stunned by Susan’s question about plea bargains because she — of all people — knows the risks involved in forcing prosecutors to make cases against people who have been charged with crimes. Could she be serious about organizing people, on a large scale, to refuse to plea-bargain when charged with a crime?
“Yes, I’m serious,” she flatly replied. ...
But in this era of mass incarceration — when our nation’s prison population has quintupled in a few decades partly as a result of the war on drugs and the “get tough” movement — these rights are, for the overwhelming majority of people hauled into courtrooms across America, theoretical. More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights and plead guilty.
“The truth is that government officials have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used,” said Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the libertarian Cato Institute. In other words: the system is rigged.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The Occupy Wall Street freeloaders are going to tear this country down.
Why doesn’t anyone care? :(
I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.
Let’s see... if you go to trial rather than plea-bargaining, especially if you might be found guilty, don’t you risk a higher penalty? Isn’t this essentially what the game theory people call “the prisoner’s dilemma?”
Interesting thought.
Yes. But, that is one of the reasons we have our such system. Go to trial and face your peers.
I always thought it would be fun to see what would happen if eveyone when to the foodstamp office, welfare and all the other “free stuff” offices and applied, even if we did not need it.
Works both ways, Obamahole libs.
Just wait....
It’ll be either that...
Or CW II.
It’ll never work.
Self-interest always wins, particularly with the criminally self-interested. Nobody’s going to risk a much longer prison sentence on some feeble attempt to crash the system.
SnakeDoc
It’s the carrot/stick game and mostly stick. The state is out to make a buck off your hide and what includes setting up a system that actuaries have calculated will result in “X” number of failures just to justify through system of revolving doors.
Prison and ticketing are industries and someone gets paid at every level.
Less if the movement were organized. A group funds the defense and gets a critical mass of people willing to go to trial. Carry the test case concept to the level of an organized challenge to the system. Pick a jurisdiction to focus on, and tear it down. Beyond that, provide for the basic needs of defendents and their families. One reason why they banned the flying wedge: it got results.
If they would not plea down criminal acts, and would make criminals serve appropriate sentences, the criminal justice system could be a lot smaller, and consume much fewer resources trying the same criminals over and over and over again.
Public Defenderes tried that before...a number of criminals were up on relatively minor charges, the defenders wanted them to go to trial and jam up the works...One of the first up decided to plead out and the judge gave him time already served and let him go...the rest jumped on board and plead out also...
The Occupy Wall Street freeloaders are going to tear this country down.
Why doesn’t anyone care? :(
They will care WTSHTF and the OWS SH!Theads and Obozo’s free sh!t army hit the streets wanting what is “Theirs”. Except within 300 or so yds of where I am at. Gonna get bloody but I have a big drainage ditch for their remains and a loader to bury them with. I haven’t forgotten the training!
Yes, the vast majority of these people are arrested for very good reason and accept a deal to reduce the odds of worse punishment with a jury trial.
Criminals all over the country are not going to unite to "crash the justice system". They couldn't care less about the system and only make these deals to save their own hides from a longer spell in jail/prison.
You have a right to a speedy trial, but not to speedy welfare. So you'd spend your time in line, and be denied, and the govt. employee who makes the determination would still get their check. What's the point, unless your time is worth less than that of the avg. welfare recipient and you're willing to waste yours to waste theirs?
On the other hand, people denied their right to a speedy trial can have their convictions overturned and indictments thrown out...
Of those who take a plea deal, They take the deal because the prosecutor has them dead to rights, and a trail would get them significantly more prison time.
There is always the chance of a acquittal, but those are some pretty long odds.
Absurd. If ObamaCare is deemed 'Constitutional', this is a logical movement by a group of 'criminals' to fight back against the State. Anyone can be deemed a criminal by this organization called govt.
There's actually a faster and lower risk way than demanding a jury trial.....
Keep your mouth shut.
Most of the people in jail either confessed to the police, or told easily checked lies to the police, or bragged to other criminals who testified against them, or talked to “trusted” friends or family who testified against them.
If a criminal has the self-discipline to continuously say, “I have no statement to make at this time,” his chance of staying out of jail instantly goes up to about 90%.
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