Here’s the situ: you are accused of a homicide yet you are innocent. Due to an awful confluence of circumstances (a mistaken eyewitness, you have no strong alibi etc.)the DA feels he has a strong albeit circumstantial case against you but will take the death penalty off the table if you plead guilty although you will spend the rest of your life in prison. Your public defender basically tells you “They got you. You’d be a fool to go to trial. Plead guilty and save your life.”
So, would you maintain your innocence and roll the dice on a jury trial or resign yourself to life in prison?
This hypothetical has to play itself often in real life and just thinking about it unsettles me. During my mis-spent youth I plead guilty to a minor crime that I had not done just to secure a lesser sentence but this would be a decision I would have a hard time wrapping my head around.
Dopesters?
The thought of the rest of my years in prison does not appeal to me. I hear prison can be a violent and unpleasant place. I would roll the dice at trial.
And fire my lawyer, the wuss.
I have no statistics to back this up but I have a feeling going to trial on a death penalty case with a public defender at the helm can be hazardous to your life.
I would not admit guilt for a crime of that magnitude unless I had in fact committed it.
I like to think I wouldn’t plead guilty either. Somehow I would be able to convince the jurors I was truly innocent. Like wave my arms around and use the f-word a lot.
“I didn’t effing do it I swear!” Something like that.
This.
What is scary is that there have been fairly long stretches of time [especially when mrAru was at sea] where I had absolutely no alibi for 90% of the time. That would have made any sort of criminal defense very difficult.
I think in that case I might be saved by the CSI Effect (in which juries will only convict if they see “smoking gun” physical evidence of the type shown on CSI). Juries really, really like DNA.
Where’s the “like” button on these forums… 
Given the amount of time it typically takes to execute a prisoner I see no reason why I shouldn’t go to trial. If I’m convicted and sentenced to death that’s an automatic appeal. I’m not sure I’d want to spend the rest of my life in prison. But I will admit that I might not be talking so brave when faced with the choice of the death penalty versus life in prison.
Agree. Roll the dice. The chance that you’ll ever be executed for a crime is pretty remote if you fight the conviction so you’re already only looking at a life sentence anyway and a plea bargain offer isn’t a better option.
What kind of a life are you saving? Is your life in prison worth it?
Now, I’ve never been anywhere near a situation like this, so it’s hard for me to imagine.But I dont think I’d survive in prison, anyway. (Everything I know about prison life comes from watching “Lockup” shows on MSNBC or Nat Geographic or whatever.They make it look like the gangs control everything, and if you’re not a gang member, you’re in big trouble.)
So for me, given the OP scenario, I’d take my chances with the death penalty. Athough it’s so far removed from anything I’ve experienced, that I have no basis for knowing how I’d react.
And, I suppose things sure look different once you actually stand there in court!
I wonder about people like Bernie Madoff and Jerry Sandusky..People who lived normal lives till they got (and deserved!) life sentences. No chance for parole, no chance for every enjoying life again. (I assume that there are no really enjoyable days in prison, just days when you suffer less.) With nothing to look forward to…there is no hope.
Unlike a critically ill person, who may be suffering, but can still find something to enjoy, who still has hope.Who can hope for a cure and still share the love of his family, etc…it seems like a life sentence in jail leaves you with no hope and nobody to emotionally relate to. (I read once that in the super-max prisons, most prisoners get one or two visits their first year or so, and then ZERO people who ask to visit them , ever.
Not what I’d call a life worth saving.
I wonder how people do it.
I value a normal life. But then, I suppose that , once you have no choice, your values change.
I think maybe I’ll take my chances. As of 2010, only one state (not Texas, although it’s close) had executed the majority of the people sentenced to death since 1977. For most people sentenced to death in the modern era, life in prison and a death sentence are the same thing, and that’s probably not going to change soon since death sentences are still happening at a much higher rate than executions.
Welcome to the SDMB, Schism. Questions like this, where you’re polling/asking for opinions, are a better fit for our IMHO forum, so I’ll move this thither for you.
Again, welcome – enjoy your stay.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
Related to this: After various incidents that happened yesterday at work, I totally understand how the police can get someone to confess to something they didn’t do. Just keep interrogating over and over, varying the way the questioning is done, showing “evidence” and mis-describing it. Show exhibit A and say it is B then ask how it happened, etc. After a certain people of time the victim becomes confused and makes a mis-step. Then the person in power seizes on that and frames the victim, regardless of everything else that was said.
I hope this isn’t a distraction, but I’d like to explore the original premise.
it’s certainly true that you might not have an alibi (e.g. you were asleep at home alone.)
However eye-witness testimony is somewhat ‘suspect’ (I believe that both here in the UK and the US there are many cases of misidentification), so I’m confident that evidence alone would not convict you of murder.
Any other evidence can be carefully examined by the defence, so I’m not sure that conviction is a certainty.
P.S. I agree with Schism - going to trial on a death penalty case with a public defender at the helm can be hazardous to your life.
I would grab a gun from someone, take a beautiful woman hostage and escape from the courthouse. While the beautiful woman reluctantly fell in love with me I would track down the real killers and, after a gun fight in which I kill most of them, force the lone survivor to confess just as the police arrive to arrest me.
That or cop the plea.
It’s called an Alford plea. Basically, it’s when you say, ‘I didn’t do it, but I acknowledge that you’ve got enough evidence to convict me, so I want to make a plea bargain.’
I don’t know if it has any legal consequences that are different from a standard guilty plea - like, if five years later evidence comes up that shows you didn’t do it, I don’t know if it’s easier to get that evidence reviewed if you made an Alford plea rather than a guilty one.
Nitpick: Eyewitness testimony is direct evidence, not circumstantial.
I’ve never been in the situation so I can’t say for certain, of course, but I don’t think I would want to live for decades in prison. The most I think I could reasonably tolerate is about ten years, and that’s probably a big stretch. So, I’d probably refuse to plead guilty just to get the automatic appeal and hope I get out before I decide they’re taking too long to kill me and do it myself.
At least, that’s what I think I would do.
I wouldn’t plead guilty.
I would roll the dice, although I would sell any and everything I have and mortgage my future up to and including indentured servitude to get someone better than a public defender.
If they ever ask me for an alibi, I am going to have to rely on comment time stamps on reddit, facebook, and my viewing log from Netflix since I live alone, don’t go out a whole lot, and am narcoleptic so I’m asleep (or barely awake) a lot when I’m not at work.