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To: Observator

This is the way “justice” is meted out in this country. Do you think the J6 political prisoners deserve the sentences they receive, especially compared to how the Antifa and BLM rioters were treated.

Most cases in this country don’t even go to trial. Plea bargaining is the way cases are resolved. Public defenders are not working in the best interests of the accused.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/resources/law_related_education_network/how_courts_work/pleabargaining/

Plea bargaining is prevalent for practical reasons.

Defendants can avoid the time and cost of defending themselves at trial, the risk of harsher punishment, and the publicity a trial could involve.

The prosecution saves the time and expense of a lengthy trial.

Both sides are spared the uncertainty of going to trial.

The court system is saved the burden of conducting a trial on every crime charged.

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158356619/plea-bargains-criminal-cases-justice

The vast majority of criminal cases end in plea bargains, a new report finds

In any given year, 98% of criminal cases in the federal courts end with a plea bargain — a practice that prizes efficiency over fairness and innocence, according to a new report from the American Bar Association.

A task force that includes prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys and academics cited “substantial evidence” that innocent people are coerced into guilty pleas because of the power prosecutors hold over them, including the prospect of decades-long mandatory minimum sentences.

“Trials have become rare legal artifacts in most U.S. jurisdictions, and even nonexistent in others,” the ABA Plea Bargain Task Force wrote in a report released Wednesday.


75 posted on 10/20/2023 5:35:11 PM PDT by kabar
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To: kabar
I think you're missing the broader context.

Nationally north of 80% of defendants end up guilty if a case goes to trial. Less than 10% of Americans have a felony. Amongst certain genders and ethnic groups there's a skew obviously.

Depending on your perspective, you could say the fix is in, there's no justice, the Man/DS controls all the courts, etc. Or you could read into it that you generally end up in a trial situation when you're guilty of something.
76 posted on 10/20/2023 5:43:32 PM PDT by Observator
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To: kabar

The prosecution saves the time and expense of a lengthy trial......I’ll challenge the expense part. They prosecution, judge and court staff get paid regardless. They aren’t billing by the hour. They get paid whether they’re in a courtroom or in their office perusing Facebook.

However, the “time” part does play the most important part. When they have felony cases stacked to the roof in every courtroom, depending on the severity of the crime and the recidivism of the defendant they’re disposing of these cases as fast as they can. Courts, especially the ones in the cities and counties that have a lot of crime, it’s more of an assembly line.

Having dealt with the Fulton County DAs office, they wheel and deal all day long. Folks would be shocked at what they offer and hand out.

IE...offer a plea to a repeat drug trafficker...plea to 10/serve 2...that means, on paper, drug dealer pled guilty and got a 10 yr sentence...’serve 2’ means that he’ll only serve 2 years of them. And, if he was in the Fulton County jail, awaiting trial, for a few months, however long he sat in the jail(if he did) is subtracted from his 2 year sentence. And if he’s good in prison, he’s out in less than whatever the remainder is. So, in effect, he might only spend 6 months in a state prison.


113 posted on 10/21/2023 3:58:55 PM PDT by qaz123
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