The real issue is the huge number of charges prosecutors can bring, charge stacking, and the rules for how aggregating factors can increase penalties. That's how a prosecutor can tip the scales so egregiously. The fix is that we need less harsh penalties and rules against charge stacking. To prevent an overcorrection we need to make sure that police departments and prosecutors enforce the [less harsh] penalties more consistently.
Penalties are so harsh today that police and prosecutors don't even care about misdemeanor convictions. If there's no potential for a felony charge the police will literally walk away. Similarly, prosecutors don't want to waste time on penny-ante misdemeanor and felony cases and will let defendants off with a minimum penalty. That creates a self-fulling prophecy that without harsh sentences criminals get off scot free. It's why California is suffering from a property crime wave--police and prosecutors are habituated to ignoring property crimes now that the penalties are less severe, which means there's no deterrence. We could have deterrence without harsher penalties if they actually did their jobs.
There are a lot of issues involved, and contrition (or lack thereof) is one of them.
Most of the judges prefer pleas for obviously guilty people since they clog the docket. Going to trial just because you can even though your case is a slam dunk guilty verdict is an abuse of privelege, imho.
If a case is not a slam dunk, the judges often don’t give the max out of spite — it all depends on the details of the case.
If you have some free time, go watch a few criminal court trials. Some of these things will make of scratch your head and wonder why the person didn’t plea (e.g., clear cctv footage of the crime being committed with multiple eyewitnesses who corroborate).
As I said elsewhere, if you don't like the system, please call your local, state, and federal representatives and request that they support more funding for the judiciary.
Every case going to trial would cost an incredibly unreal amount of money -- there needs to be some streamlining somewhere, and the question is where and how.
There are other ways of avoiding the trial than threatening the accused. Also there are countries that don't seem to have this problem. Perhaps a look outside the US might suggest some alternative ways of behaving that might be used.
If I am actually innocent, there are most likely three scenarios:
1. The DA drops the charges. This is a very common outcome when the case is not a slam dunk.
2. I was a witness to the crime and/or I was in the vicinity of the crime, and for some reason I was not willing to mention this to the DA. This happens a fair bit (esp. the vicinity one), but this is not a "slam dunk guilty" case, and every lawyer will tell you this. My guess is that I would talk to the DA via my lawyer, because I aggressively avoid hanging around places that are likely to have crime (even the white collar variety), and I have nothing to hide.
3. I was framed. This is tricky. My reaction would depend on the context, but again, I keep a healthy distance from people who regularly and knowingly commit crimes.
It seems like a lot of people think that DAs just sit around looking for fake charges to drop on innocent people. This simply does not happen as much as some commenters seem to think it does. Does it happen? Sure. Is this something I ever worry about? No, never.
Do you know of any/many completely innocent people who were wrongly jailed?
The worst I know of is a guy who was trafficking 9,000 pounds of marijuana and got fingered for the whole thing rather than charged as one of three. His issue? He didn't sing and the others did. He got what many would call an unreasonably long sentence given the circumstances (iirc, he did 2 years). Note that a crime had actually been committed (and he admitted to it, at least to friends), so it's not like he was innocent.
https://www.innocenceproject.org/
With the note that that is the tip of the proverbial iceberg but if that doesn't convince you that you are flat-out wrong I don't know what will.
As I have said elsewhere, when the facts are not as clear, the plea offers tend to contrast less starkly with a court sentence as well.
You seem to think that there are a lot of cases where the DA is just making up charges against a totally innocent person. That just happens very rarely. There are some weird domains like CPS/child abuse that have must-try cases for political reasons, but the various actors all know what's going on there and conduct themselves accordingly.
Look, IANAL. I am just telling you what my best friend has told me over the past two decades. If you want to learn more about this, go talk to a defense attorney and ask them their opinion on this matter. I think you will be (pleasantly?) surprised at how reasonable the system usually is.
If I were arrested and charged for a crime I did not do, having to choose between 6 months guilty (_and a felon for life_), or the chance of zero-or-20 years would be Very Difficult. On the one hand, I don't have the money to pay for a good attorney -- which means I'm more likely to lose, bankrupt my family, screw any chance of retirement, etc. On the other hand, pleading guilty to a crime which I know I am innocent of rankles me because of the injustice, but it also is the (game theory wise one) choice that gets me back to my family faster. (Of course then, being a felon, good luck getting a job, so my chances of a good life later are also totally messed up.)
You're looking at this from the perspective of someone who is guilty, and Might Get Away With it. Of course a plea makes sense there. Try looking at it from the perspective of someone falsely accused, though, whose option is either a public defender or being falsely convicted.
It takes some serious mental gymnastics (e.g., your doppelganger commits a crime right as you walk by) or you living in a massively corrupt area.
As far as money goes, you can get a publicly appointed attorney that the state pays for if you cannot afford an attorney on your own. Some of these folks are really good, some aren't. That said, if you're totally innocent, no lawyer who has passed the bar should have any trouble getting the charges dropped. Again, DAs don't just sit around trying to frame people for crimes they didn't commit -- they have enough actual work to do.
Es a "for example" I suggest that you read about Mike Nifong's (DA on the Duke LaCrosse rape case) actions and his despicable lying. [1]
This may seriously change your opinion on the subject.
DA's regularily lie and cheat for political gain.
What percentage of cases do you think are like this? My guess is sub 0.01% — it’s just not that common according to the defense attorneys I know. When it does happen, bar complaints fly. My friend tells me that there definitely are wrongful convictions, but it is often not that the person was innocent of a crime, but that they were convicted of the wrong charge. As far as I am concerned, these types of cases seem to be very much the exception rather than the rule — no system is perfect, and I am fully aware of that.
I have said elsewhere that a corrupt district or DA is a caveat to my stance. Ditto with high profile “must try” cases (I was a juror in one of those). That was a district with a corrupt DA — it happens. The cool thing to me is that the dude was disbarred — the system worked.
I will also add that I think universities interpret rules far too generously (more like guilty until proven innocent), and I don’t agree with that at all, but that does not always become a legal matter. When it does, it is often a must-case for political reasons, and plea deals getnwokky then. I’ve said all of this elsewhere.
Cuz the vast majority of these were not plea bargains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wrongful_convictions_i...
That's...amusing.
> Again, DAs don't just sit around trying to frame people for crimes they didn't commit
Mostly not, it's more likely to be child who conceive of the frame and manufacture evidence (both planting physical evidence and falsifying testimonial evidence.) Plenty of groups of cops have been found doing this, sometimes to cover premeditated police crimes, and sometimes to cover for police errors.
And sometimes the FBI simply invents entire fields of forensic science so that they can have “experts” testify in their (and state) trials to support the guilt of whomever law enforcement is directed at.
The idea that it is trivial for a minimally qualified lawyer to ensure that the factually innocent walk free in America is laughably naive.
Guess what, jury nullification is a thing. So even if they’re 110% guilty and the evidence is incontrovertible, the jury of their peers may judge that the law in question was unjust and the charge unfair and acquit them anyway.
They have the right. Period. No equivocation.
It's a right, not a privilege. There is a fundamental difference.
Economy of justice is an important consideration in the civil system but if there are too many criminal cases for courts to providing way the process to which there is a constitutional right, that's a problem of the legislative branch criminalizng too much conduct or underfunding courts or the executive branch engaging in overzealous prosecution. Rigorous questioning of criminal cases isn't just a right of the accused, it is the manner in which the public if assured that real crimes are being properly prosecuted rather than the government lazily scapegoating convenient, vulnerable targets while the real perpetrators go free.
All it will take is some LEO or prosecutor to decide to come after you and you will be facing the very thing that any others have faced.
Due process and a fair trial are rights, not privileges.
What privilege?
Even if this concept is defensible (which is arguable), something like 1 year extra is plenty of excess punishment compared to the cost of a trial.