Posted on 05/15/2020 8:06:43 AM PDT by Hojczyk
But a less-noticed effect of these draconian laws has been to shift sentencing power to the prosecutors. Now, under intense pressure to find ways to avoid the immense sentences they will face if they go to trial and are convicted, virtually all defendants—whether innocent or guilty—beg prosecutors to let them plead to reduced charges.
The statistics bear witness to this shift. For decades, as noted, 15% to 20% of federal defendants went to trial.11 But as soon as mandatory minimums and mandatory guidelines took effect in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the percentage began to rapidly decrease: by 2000 only 5% of all federal defendants (reportedly even a smaller percentage of state defendants) went to trial.12 In 2015, only 2.9% of federal defendants went to trial, and, although the state statistics are still being gathered, it may be as low as less than 2%.13 These tiny percentages have remained relatively constant in the 2000s even though crime rates have steadily and dramatically declined since 1996, so that the system can no longer claim to be “overloaded.”
The net result is that prosecutors, rather than judges, now effectively determine the sentences to be imposed in most cases. They do this in plea bargains hammered out in the prosecutors’ offices in unrecorded conversations with defense counsel—sessions in which, because of the pressure on defendants to reduce their sentencing exposure, the prosecutors effectively hold most of the cards.
Furthermore, not only are these sessions secret, one-sided, and lacking judicial oversight, but also the results vary materially from prosecutor to prosecutor. Thus, the discrepancies (i.e., substantially different sentences for the same crime) that the statutory sentencing guidelines were intended to reduce still occur. Even more troubling is that without oversight, no one can even begin to measure the extent of such discrepancy.
(Excerpt) Read more at scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu ...
From the article..worth reading...
So I end with the not very optimistic conclusion that, for the immediate future at least, prosecutors, rather than judges, will be the real rulers of the American criminal justice system. And I ask you: is that fair?
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1292&context=nulr
Similar conclusions as Gerry Spence...Police State
Good points. This is one reason I’ve always been puzzled that conservatives have long loved the “Law & Order” TV franchise. The prosecutors each week find ways to stretch the law to bully “perps” in pleading.
Gerry Spence also said 90% of defendants are guilty.
We have been fooled into believing the JUSTICE system is fair...
Just like we were fooled by the GOP...we believed that they would do certain things if elected..
Trump exposed them all as corrupt..
GerrySpence...the justice system will be corrupt til the honest people turn on the corrupt 20%..cops,judges,prosecutors,lawyers
I tend to agree with the article’s conclusions. As a prosecutor (either part- or full-time) for much of my 35 years in practice, I have found that waaaaayyy too many prosecutors fail to remember - or simply disregard - the ethical and legal standard that explicitly states “the job of a prosecutor is not to convict, but to ensure that justice is done”. To my shame, I kept a score sheet in my early days as an Air Force trial counsel, because that’s what we bragged about. After I spent 3 years as an Area and Circuit Defense Counsel, I was firmly of the opinion that no prosecutor should be allowed to be a Chief of Military Justice until he/she had been a defense counsel.
Colonel, USAF TJAGCR (ret)
bump
Ping!
There is a lot of prosecutorial abuse.
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