I recall until recently that criminals were charged for only some of their crimes. For example serial killers like Ted Bundy was charged with the cases that had the most likely chances of conviction. He was convicted of 3 murders and confessed to 20. That was still more than enough to keep him in prison for life or until he was executed. (He was executed on January 24, 1989).
That seemed to be typical throughout my life. It’s just more practical and efficient to charge a few of the major offensives and get convictions that still accomplishes the goal of the offender never getting out of prison.
Then I see this headline. Ariel Castro faces 977 charges.
How in the world could a case that huge ever be prosecuted? What is the point? The cost alone in manpower and court resources is staggering. Just preparing this case for trial could take many years.
Whats behind this? Will charging and prosecuting every crime a offender allegedly committed become the new standard? What does this mean for our already overloaded court system?
It’s a way to ensure that (a) the guy will bargain to avoid a trial, and/or (b) even if he escapes some charges on a technicality, he will still do several life sentences.
Although it seems (b) pretty much nullifies (a). It’s probably an effort to avoid appeals based on double jeopardy if they fail to convict on some charges and want to bring others.
Recall that Al Capone was only convicted of income tax evasion. Or Martha Stewart was convicted of obstructing justice but not of the initial case of insider trading that started it all.
Aaron Swartz committed suicide when prosecutors threatened him with 35 years in jail for downloading publicly available scientific papers; allegedly, they claimed they “never said that’, 'didn’t mean it”, etc. - but generally it seems to have been a tactic to make him plead guilty and take 6 months or else risk trial and (up to) 35 years. So in his case, it was (a).
Are there sixth amendment issues here? There’s no way a case with 977 charges could be prepared and brought to trial within a reasonable time.
I see the point that they are hoping for a plea deal on some of those charges. Just three of those more serious charges would result in multiple life sentences for Castro.
I haven’t noticed that anything has changed. They’ll hold off on some charges if they’re short on evidence or want insurance to reprosecute in case of an acquittal. They’ll overcharge if they’re worried about the defendent getting bail or they want the jury to see the scope of the crimes. Maybe the total number has gone up with prosecutors looking for every possible crime a person could conceivably charged with.
At this rate they’ll start citing him for zoning violations. Too many people in the house’s unheated basement. Basement apartments require permits and inspections.
I understand he’s committed horrible crimes. But listing 977 of them seems a bit ridiculous. It almost cheapens the more serious offenses he committed.
A pile of charges like that seems hard to take seriously. IIRC (hey, it was 2 days ago already that I read the article), there were well over a hundred (several hundred?) kidnapping charges, and likewise rape charges.
How do they count and catalog those? Do they charge a new count of kidnapping for every day they can document he held one of them? How do they count how many times he raped each of them? Was there a trove of photos?
It’s not a recent trend, just a factor of publicity. Well publicized trials, or trials for well publicized crimes almost always receive harsher sentences than those with less publicity.
What makes it seem more common in recent times is the huge increase in ways an event can be publicized, and the amount of information people receive. Up until the mid 90’s, if it wasn’t on the evening news or in a newspaper, most people didn’t hear about it. And there’s only so much you can fit into those mediums.
I understand how Castro can be charged with hundreds of counts of rape - each act of forced intercourse is a separate crime. I don’t understand the hundreds of kidnapping charges, though. Each woman was abducted on a single occasion and then held until she was rescued earlier this year. Is there a separate kidnapping charge for every time a woman was forced into restraints? Is there a separate charge for every time a woman was allowed to set foot outside the house and then compelled to go back inside?
Take speeding. IF you speed through 3 counties, you can get three speeding fines, even though you never slowed down in between the detections.
There is the question of numerics of charges. “Three strikes and you are out”.
How do you detect if one serious crime is worth “three strikes” ?
Well the local law there says that there can be one charge there for each day.
It just specifically says that for kidnapping,there can be a new charge for each 24 hours.
Its just their way to ramp up the severity of the charge.
Could part of the reasoning be it’s a way to make sure if the defendant gets off on the most serious charge, there will be a lesser included offense that could stick?
Bundy was a special case, though - he fled to Florida and was tried and executed for the three victims he was known to have killed there. If Florida was willing to let him get shipped to other states he could have been tried for many more murders, but seeing as how he had a history of escaping during trial and committing more murders they weren’t letting him out of Florida’s death row for a second.