Plea bargain

vc1111 · 01-31-2003, 08:24 AM

Our courts are jammed. Dockets are laced with repeat offenders and first timers.

A "good" attorney has many traits, but one of them is "who" he or she has access and influence with inside the courts...

Should plea bargain be eliminated?

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vc1111 · 01-31-2003, 08:26 AM

And one more question...(since I don't stay on topic even within my own topics<img src=icon_smile_tongue.gif border=0 align=middle>)

Am I going crazy or did I not see a topic hosted by Hog guide yesterday that disappeared within hours?????

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Strange Biller · 01-31-2003, 10:36 AM

vc, I'm not sure I follow your point. How would eliminating plea bargains improve court congestion? There would be MORE back-ups in the courts if everything went to trial.

But, that is really neither here nor there, as plea bargaining doesn't exist. At least, not in an official capacity. There are no laws or rules (in all states that I know of) that actually allow for plea bargaining - it is always done in an unofficial manner by the prosecutor, but he/she has no actual authority to do so. They simply make tacit agreements that they will only push for X years if the defendent pleads guilty, and generally the judge will bow to the prosecutor's wishes and only sentence accordingly.

However, as far as I know, there is no contract and the judge or the prosecutor can simply ignore any promises made (which happens from time to time, especially in Texas) and throw the book at the defendent after they plead guilty. I would imagine the DA's office doesn't usually do this or like to see it happen, because if their office gets a reputation for not sticking to their agreements no one will plead.

Also, remember, plea bargaining is vastly more useful to the DA's office than to the defenders. Generally a DA will only accept a plea bargain when they have less than an airtight case. They don't accept a plea bargain if they have enough evidence to put the guy away for the max. So, yeah, sometimes you get scumbags receiving shorter sentences than they might really deserve, but more often you ensure the scumbag goes to jail where he might not have if it went to trial.

Johnny · 01-31-2003, 10:50 AM

Actually hog guide has a post under my 'banning the bible' thread. I never saw a thread started by him. Hmmmmmmm

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logs · 01-31-2003, 11:23 AM

Plea bargains are a tool of the court, whether formal or not, that are not always understood.
Stranger B makes a good observation here and probibly the 60% of the reason plea bargains are offered. remember, plea bargaining is vastly more useful to the DA's office than to the defenders. Generally a DA will only accept a plea bargain when they have less than an airtight case. They don't accept a plea bargain if they have enough evidence to put the guy away for the max. So, yeah, sometimes you get scumbags receiving shorter sentences than they might really deserve, but more often you ensure the scumbag goes to jail where he might not have if it went to trial.

One of the major problems with the judicial system is the the courts are backlogged and as a result the victims continue to be victimized as they attempt to recieve justice. They spend long days in the courts and nothing moves forward.
The courts routinely schedule numerous cases for the same day because they know that most will not be ready to proceed yet all the victims and witnesses must be there in case it is ready. Low and behold if they are not, the defendent will get a dismissal. But rarely is the reverse done, normally an ajournment is granted if a defense witness fails to appear. If the defendent fails to appear a bench warrant may be issued but little good does that do.
Now months or years go by before the defendent is brought back before the courts and the DA has a hard time finding the victims, witness and in some cases the officers. People move, die change jobs and other things. The bad guy walks, no case.
Now you got a guy for say burglary. You have a very good case and will likely win it. Your victim works full time and your witness is elderly. You physical evidence is good but not enough alone to seal the deal.
Any defense attorney worth his salt will delay this case as many times as possible so that the victim who was covered by insurance and has been finacially compensated gets sick of missing work everytime the case comes up on the calendar, the elder witness might be sick or even die the longer you delay this case. Now a good DA figures ..I'd rather get a guilty plea for a misdemeanor theft than nothing at all. So the DA offers this to get a small bit of justice for society.

Most people dislike plea bargains because they feel they have been cheated twice, once by the criminal and once by the courts. Reality tells use that 11 month for theft is better than a burglar walking free with nothing.

Judges are not required to accept the plea bargain recommendation of the DA but they also want to keep the system moving forward and have to get elected. Nobody votes for the judge who lets the defendent walk because he insisted on a trial that never takes place. The reason the judges don't just throw the book at the guy disregarding the plea bargain, they can do that, is once they do that no defense attorney will accept one in that judges court. Back to square one.

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Edited by - logs on 01/31/2003 12:24:49

CalHunter · 01-31-2003, 11:38 AM

No, VC, plea bargains should not be eliminated. There is a common perceptioon that all plea bargains are bad or that they all involve some murder or rapist getting some ridiculously short sentence like 6 months or so. In reality, it just isn't so.

Many plea bargains involve something minor, such as a few less months on a sentence, dropping some additional charge(s) or even the reduction of a felony charge to misdemeanor (such as petty theft instead of grand theft for some kid).

The ability to plea bargain does enable the courts to process as many as 10-20 times the # of cases they have capacity for each week throughout the year. It also enables victims not to have to testify (if they agree to the plea bargain) and it avoids forcing many thousands more Americans to have to serve on jury trials.

In 12 years of being a cop, I have rarely ever seen a plea bargain that I thought was too lenient or inappropriate in my county. I'll admit my county sentences much harsher than others but the plea bargain system seems to work for many defendants and their attornies as well as victims and citizens in my county.

I haven't seen much of this attorney "influence" you talked about changing likely outcomes on cases. A good attorney can certainly help but I haven't seen them getting some kind of "fix" for their clients. I realize a lot of shenanigans occur in other parts of the country but it really is pretty straightforward in my county.

Strange Biller is correct in that a Judge does not have to follow the agreed upon sentence in a plea bargain arrangement between the DA and defense attornies. However, judges do follow their plea bargain agreements probably 99% of the time. I have seen 2 instances where the judge overruled something like that.

One was a case where I had pursued a guy for several miles and he almost hit several pedestrians who had to jump out of the way. The plea bargain was 1 year with no prison time. The judge gave him 2 years with prison time and said he would throw the book (possibly a 3 strikes 25-life sentence) at him if he ever did this again.

The other case was where the DA filed the case as a misdemeanor and the defense attorney was prepared to accept a plea bargain on a misdemeanor. The judge told the DA to refile the case as a felony since it was not a misdemeanor and he would not accept a misdemeanor plea bargain. We have VERY good judges in my county.<img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_cool.gif border=0 align=middle>

VC, I think I also saw a topic by hog guide in the political forum. I can't remember what the topic was but it did seem to disappear pretty fast. Somebody else mentioned in another topic that people are spoofing old user names with slight variations and that the user IP addies match some current ones. I'd be curious to know about that myself.

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stickerpt · 01-31-2003, 12:12 PM

I think Logs had it exactly right. No way should they be
elimated. If they were a lot of criminals would walk instead
of having to do sometime.

bluesranger · 01-31-2003, 03:33 PM

I saw hog guide's topic and posted to it, but I don't remember what it was about...come to think of it, you posted too, VC!

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vc1111 · 01-31-2003, 04:28 PM

So where did Hogguides topic go, Bluesguy?

I am against plea bargaining: if you are charged with a crime that is the crime you should stand for. Its that simple. If you don't have the goods on a criminal don't start high and see what you can get out of the "deal".

As to the attorney's...the "right" attorney knows the prosecutors and judges and can arrange a plea that might be better than another attorney might be able to arrange.

Hey, I've been wrong before (but I really can't remember when <img src=icon_smile_tongue.gif border=0 align=middle>) so maybe you guys are right. But I think that many criminal types know full well that in many cases what they are charge with is not what they will be punished for. That would lead me to believe that plea bargaining leads to a lower respect for the law, the system and courts by not only the criminal, but the public in general.

You coppers would know a lot more about than I would. I'm just musing here.

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