It's similar to what was done to witches in medieval times: "Confess, and we will kill you gently, or be sentenced and be burned alive."
But of course it has nothing to do with how dangerous he is in most cases. They're just selectively enforcing vague laws just to pile them up and force him to accept at least some prison time, even if he considers himself innocent.
That should be illegal and considered against human rights, especially since usually I believe the judges have no say in it, as the charges happen before the accused is brought in front of a judge. Without a judge you can't have "justice" either. You just have government bullies using the government's might to put someone - anyone - in prison, even if he's innocent or only guilty of minor offences. This is exactly why such abuses of power should be illegal.
To the prosecutor it is just a day job, whether the guy spends 1 or 10 years in prison won't really change anything to his holiday plans. To the defendant, he is playing with his own life. He will have to be locked in a room with thugs for many years, away from his family or any prospect of a normal life.
So both parties have a very different risk aversion in that game. So the prosecution plays with that.
Now if you inflicted a significant pain (career progression, financial penalty) on the prosecutor every time he sent someone to court that turned out to be judged innocent, then you would even this "game" and would probably end up with a more fair bargain.
As to fairness itβs considered completely reasonable for an innocent person who is a possible flight risk to spend a year in jail awaiting trial.
That being said, prosecutors are humans, and often-times egotistical, political, cynical, and more than occasionally vindictive humans with all that entails. So, it is hardly uncommon to see rules already stacked in the state's favor bent or broken.
Trials are virtually extinct in the USA. With few exceptions, if you find yourself going to trial, you are not in a good place. While good lawyers should be trial lawyers and unafraid of trying any triable case, the vast majority of the time if you are getting off, you are getting off pretrial with a dismissal or deferred prosecution agreement. If you lose on pretrial motions and the state is intent on prosecuting, then most of the time if your attorney can get you a deal and recommends that you take it, then it's a choice between pride/"truth" and rolling dice loaded against you and paying for it big time.
While in principle as a defendant you are not supposed to be punished for taking your right to go to trial, the plea system punishes you heavily, and if you refuse to "take responsibility" by admitting guilty (the earlier the better) and expressing remorse, then you get punished even more post-conviction, with a heavier sentence, and then certainly being denied parole if that is available in the state system.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2014/01/30/7t...
PS: Absolute immunity protects from both criminal prosecution and lawsuits, so in general they can at worst be fired possibly disbarred. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_immunity
As for the prosecutor themselves, defendants or judges can and do refer misconduct to bar associations which can and do disbar prosecutors. Judges can directly hold prosecutors in contempt and fine or jail them in extreme cases, or refer them for criminal prosecution on charges ranging from perjury, obstruction of justice, official misconduct, and criminal contempt and so on. As with any criminal cases involving criminal justice professionals, this is quite rare, but it does happen, and absolute immunity is no barrier to it.
As such, it was usually only the innocent people that went through the trial-by-god process, and very often the priest conducting the trial rigged the process, and very few people were actually killed in the process.
See how bargaining can make your life a bit easier?
A collusion insinuates secrecy or illegality. There's a plain treaty about extraditions. If you get prosecuted in the US the default mode is that you get extradited.
In practice extraditions are almost never blocked, you would have to be in very special circumstances, like if you'd be at risk of being put to death in the US. Or have some illness that's not treated properly in the US. Maybe a very big public outcry in The Netherlands could work in your favor.
In this case it's very plain. There's no public outcry, he's viewed as a common criminal in The NL. His actions are most likely illegal here as well and it doesn't seem like a very good moment to go discussing the US' extreme penalties for intellectual crime.
His problem wasn't that he wouldn't receive a fair trial, his problem was that the laws themselves are silly (but not obviously immoral or excessive). If he had faced a corporeal punishment (death penalty or mutilation), he might have had a case.
Of course the ideal path would have been facing the hearing and then pleading guilty when he was extradited, but the plea bargain likely required him not to challenging the extradition and his chances for successfully doing so were likely far too low to take the gamble.