Posted on 02/14/2018 6:05:53 AM PST by reaganaut1
The Sixth Amendment states, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed….” Those words stand a clearly as they did when the Bill of Rights was adopted, but these days, Americans who insist on a jury trial may find themselves punished for doing so.
Here’s the problem. The American judicial system is so overwhelmed with cases that prosecutors don’t want to bother with trials. They would much rather strong-arm the defendant into a plea bargain, thus avoiding the cost and risk of a trial.
Defendants who resist the strong-arming are likely to suffer what Cato Institute legal scholar Clark Neily calls here “the trial penalty.” He writes, “It is among the most important features of America’s criminal justice system, and yet there is no reference to it in the Constitution, it is not taught in high school civics classes or even law schools, and most lawyers have never heard of it. Nevertheless, the Trial Penalty is the grease that keeps the massive engine of American criminal justice humming along at peak efficiency.”
More than 95 percent of criminal cases are settled with plea bargains and prosecutors would be happy if that number went over 99 percent, so defendants who demand a trial are usually hit by threats of various repercussions if they don’t cooperate. Human Rights Watch (HRW) states in this article, “In the rare cases in which defendants insist on going to trial, prosecutors make good on their threats. Federal drug offenders convicted after trial receive sentences on average three times as long as those who accept a plea bargain….”
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
For your interest my FRiend.
I was told by a civil litigator that 95% or more of his cases were settled before trial, mostly because after discovery, and pre-trial motion jockeying, they had a pretty good idea of how the case would go, and because full-on big civil trials are extremely expensive in terms of legal fees.
Remember our naive youth, when many of us actually trusted the legal system?
OK, at least i did.
Nope, I’ve never tangled with it, but I sincerely hope that I never do.
Speedy trial? LOL! I know a guy who was arrested in July 2016 for impersonating a federal law enforcement agent and didn’t go to trial until early this past December.......
One has to be rather old to remember that time.
In a just world an innocent party would be reimbursed at the prevailing wage for all the time they spent in jail awaiting a trial.
Just eliminate plea bargaining and force the government to take every single case to a jury.
The other side of this argument, of course, is that prosecutors leave a lot on the table for the convenience of a plea. It is also likely that the group accepting a pleas includes more who would not be found guilty compared to the number of innocents in the convicted group. I.e., if innocent do not plea bargain.
Depends on whether you’re guilty or not.
Flynn plead guilty to a crime he didn’t commit just to stop the financial bleeding for he and his son.
During jury selection, it's evident to me that anyone with an IQ over room temperature is quickly eliminated from consideration, and those that are seated are easily swayed by any worthy attorney.
Again, I'm basing this on the assumption of innocence, although clearly a lot of obviously guilty perps have walked thanks to lamebrain juries.
But, with the right pool of jurors, it can be done on the sly.
So many laws, so little time.
Perry Mason usually ends his cases without a jury trial by proving there is no case or getting someone to confess in the preliminary hearings.
Isn’t that the way it always works with justice being done and the true guilty party being found out and jailed?
/s
Yeah. Basically, if government too big, and if there are too many laws, so that the country cannot even have a functioning legal system (with jury trials as needed) then you’ve taken a wrong turn.
In a free society, there should be far fewer reasons for anyone to ever be inside a courthouse. And speedy trials would be far more possible.
A typical civil trial can cost over $50k just to have a simple trial. Legal cost are prohibitive for most people who seek justice.
It's not that hard for a smart person to learn enough about criminal law to frustrate, and generally be a pain in the ass to the prosecution. Also, Flynn's lawyer was more interested in maximizing his billing to Flynn, so his own attorney put him into bankruptcy when he could have easily had the charge dismissed.
I mean, how hard is it to figure out that no one has been convicted for a violation of the Logan act, and no Logan Act violation has gone to trial in probably a century.
Flynn's attorney should have demanded the 302s from the very beginning.
An in-law of mine was accused of a crime and decided not to plea bargain since he did not commit the crime. He did this against the advice of his attorney. He was eventually found not guilty by a jury.
The pressure to plea bargain is unbelievable compared to the sentence that a judge/jury may hand down. I couldn't sit in on the trial, since I was being reserved by his lawyer as a character witness, so the worst part for me was the jury deliberations. Waiting, questions being sent from the jury, waiting more... It was pure hell. We were so relieved when the verdict came down.
The point of all of this is that the plea bargain starts to look really good when you are sitting in a jail cell, but if you are innocent and hold your ground, as my in-law did, it will be emotionally draining up until the time a jury hopefully finds you not guilty. Even though you knew you were innocent all along.
At least with a trial you have a chance of getting on with your life without the prospect of prison in your future.
That's because the attorneys for both parties have an understanding that they do what they can to stretch out the case in order to maximize billings for both of them.
Seems the courts are fragrantly negligent on defining that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.