Plus, even the Supreme Court has long acknowledged that innocent people might feel compelled to accept plea bargains, using some rather perverse reasoning in the process to conclude that, actually, everything is fine, and so deny a new trial to someone who had pled guilty, but then asserted his actual innocence.
It’s where the Alford plea comes from: North Carolina v. Alford.
Yes. It was odd to me, at first, when watching UK crime/murder mysteries that murderers seemed to serve about 7 years. It seemed so short to me, but it now seems more appropriate when rehabilitation is the actual point.
I don’t think you should be punished for your opinions about your actions, just for your actions.
Also, unless we are going to throw out free speech, they can take back their statement of remorse, as here:
Your true “opinions about your actions” is pretty much the definition of rehabilitation. In any case, a plea deal is not just an opinion, it is an action in itself. It means giving up your right to trial and the possibility of continuing to lie about your guilt to maybe beat the system, and accepting some punishment.
Do you want to throw out any attempt at rehabilitation completely because sometimes people lie?
I don’t think “what you said to negotiate a lower sentence” is especially related to " rehabilitation".
You really don’t think that admitting guilt, giving up your opportunity to continue to lie at trial to attempt to exploit the “reasonable doubt” standard to potentially get away with your crime completely, that has nothing to do with starting a process of rehabilitation?
You can’t throw out a system based on pointing out examples of when it doesn’t work. How exactly do you envision a system working in which people are effectively not allowed to plead guilty, because the system doesn’t acknowledge that pleading guilty is the right thing to do if you are guilty?
Huh? What has anyone suggested that would prevent someone from playing guilty?
Anyway, every example I’ve seen felt corrupt. So yes, I’m very interested in exploring other systems that might lead lead to better outcomes.
Why would anyone plead guilty if you are treated exactly the same as if you plead not guilty?
Because they are guilty, and expect to be found guilty, and want to move on.
I realize that makes no sense when we also throw people into prison for decades for drug possession, but if we also had shorter sentences, and criminals expected to eventually get out and move on with their lives, that would be a real motive.
Well, no it wouldn’t. What matters is relative treatment. If you get the same sentence for being found guilty at trial, why not take the free option of maybe getting off? Because people in this thread who object to plea bargains are simultaneously complaining that prosecutors are overzealous, so we need strict standards of proof at trial to protect the innocent. Which means if I’m guilty I’ve got a great chance of getting away with it.
My life can be consumed by dealing with the trial for 2 years, followed by 5 in prison. Or i can go to prison now and be free and clear in just 5 years, instead of 7. That is a real motive.
Although, i have a friend who has argued that the death penalty is good for the innocent. Basically, no one gets the death penalty unless they fight the charge. Which means that a disproportionate number of the people on death row are actually innocent. But, and here’s the saving grace, if you are actually on death row, you get some extra appeals, and there are agencies that investigate. So a disproportionate number of people on death row get their conviction overturned, too.
Of course, a lot of innocent people are executed. But hey, there’s a cost for everything, and fewer innocent people rot in jail for decades.
I really do not understand how people still operate under the assumption that only guilty people plead guilty, and innocent people will surely go to trial.
Nobody operates under that assumption.
But you cannot just criticize a system based on “there exist false positives” or “there exist false negatives”. We obviously want to minimize both, but after trying to make the system as reliable as possible, there is an inevitable tradeoff. The more you seek to protect the innocent from wrongful punishment, the more guilty people will go unpunished. The more skeptical you are about people’s state of mind, the more you inhibit genuine rehabilitation.
I think what people here are really concerned with is corrupt or inappropriate implementation of plea bargaining, not the principle itself. The real underlying problems that create injustice are the cost and complexity of the legal process, the privileged position of the wealthy, the immoral and ineffective philosophy of harsh retribution rather than rehabilitation, disproportionate punishment for drug “crimes”.
You say this as if it’s possible to distinguish implementation from principle where humans are concerned? Truly, I think this is a fundamental flaw of the “facts and logic” crowd. Among the facts that must be considered are how actual humans will feel about a thing. You cannot ever hope to conceive of an optimum system for humans to be subjected to and to preside over without making at least implicit certain assumptions about human behavior.
Among those assumptions must be the coercive nature of the criminal justice system, to which the innocent are exposed as well as the guilty, and the perverse incentive a plea bargaining system might have.
Could there be a better system? I don’t know. But no system to which humans are subjected and over which humans preside can be made better merely by willing that humans should somehow become something other than what they are: humans. An appeal to “principles” over “implementation” simply doesn’t do it for me.
I have no idea what any of this rant is supposed to mean in this context.
Distinguishing bad implementation from sound principle simply means that we should not (for example) abandon the principle of democracy just because one election is found to be corrupt.
If you think plea bargaining is fundamentally so incompatible with human nature that it does more harm than good, you’ll have to make that case with more than just vague assertions that nobody has considered imperfect human nature.
Well this is the crux of the matter. “There exist false positives” is not a meaningful criticism of anything unless you can propose something better.
The perverse incentive is created by the cost and complexity of the legal system, by the fact that only a wealthy person can afford the time and money to be sure of a fair trial, by inappropriately harsh and retributive potential sentences, not by the fundamental principle of plea bargaining in itself.
It’s worse than that. Power corrupts. The plea system, especially coupled with our retributive (not rehabilitative) system of “justice” gives the prosecutor immense power. It gives the police immense power (and civil forfeiture laws give them substantial motive for corruption.) The natural path for humans to take is to abuse the power that plea bargaining gives them.
I agree, and I think to some extent we’re arguing at cross purposes here. I’m saying that I think the source of the abused power derives from the fact that most people who aren’t rich cannot afford the time or money to go to trial and get a fair trial, and from harsh and retributive potential sentences. Without these factors, plea bargaining would be much less open to abuse. I don’t think the principle that you should get a lighter punishment if you plead guilty is wrong in itself.
Remember that this discussion arose in a thread about the wealthy and privileged Holmes. I don’t think she was subject to any abuse of power when she refused to acknowledge her obvious guilt, was found guilty and subject to a harsher sentence after trial than a plea bargain might have offered.
I don’t see any obvious reason why people who plead guilty should serve less time. I feel that principle needs to be supported before we go any further.
But we could certainly implement it better.
It’s no great mystery why plea bargains are popular.
Criminals admit to lesser offenses (sometimes much lesser) and get shorter sentences, instead of playing the lottery and hoping that slick lawyering will lead a jury astray enough to acquit them. Prosecutors like plea bargains, especially in difficult cases because their record won’t be tarnished by an acquittal and they can chalk up another “victory”. Defense lawyers can claim they got a great deal for their clients in cases of clear-cut guilt. Judges approve of plea bargains to lessen congestion in backlogged courts.
Elizabeth Holmes evidently decided she could con a jury as she was able to with investors, and lost her bet.
If you meant to echo Lord Acton, what he actually said (and is so often mischaracterized) is “Power tends to corrupt (italics added) and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
I’ve made the case for the principle pretty clearly.
First, acknowledging guilt and accepting punishment without continuing to lie at trial is the first step on the path to rehabilitation. It should be rewarded. How much it should be rewarded at that stage is an important question, but to protest that “not everyone is sincere” is not a valid criticism unless you reject the principle of rehabilitation altogether.
Second, in order to protect the innocent, we want a high bar of certainty for conviction at trial. This must mean that a lot of guilty people who go to trial will go free. To mitigate that, you offer plea bargains to reward guilty people who acknowledge their guilt and do not try to exploit a trial system designed to protect the innocent.
The principle of plea bargaining is important to both a framework of rehabilitation for the guilty, and to requiring a standard of proof at trial that protects the innocent.