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Comment by csa | Hacker News Reader

Maybe.

There are a lot of issues involved, and contrition (or lack thereof) is one of them.

Most of the judges prefer pleas for obviously guilty people since they clog the docket. Going to trial just because you can even though your case is a slam dunk guilty verdict is an abuse of privelege, imho.

If a case is not a slam dunk, the judges often don’t give the max out of spite — it all depends on the details of the case.

If you have some free time, go watch a few criminal court trials. Some of these things will make of scratch your head and wonder why the person didn’t plea (e.g., clear cctv footage of the crime being committed with multiple eyewitnesses who corroborate).

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"Clog the docket"? Why isn't the court system appropriately scaled to give each defendant their Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial? Because fuck them, that's why.

Because many elected officials and many voters aggressively try to cut the budget for the judiciary.

As I said elsewhere, if you don't like the system, please call your local, state, and federal representatives and request that they support more funding for the judiciary.

Every case going to trial would cost an incredibly unreal amount of money -- there needs to be some streamlining somewhere, and the question is where and how.

If every case going to trial would cost an unreal amount of money, then the solution is to either reduce everyone's Constitutional rights, or do things differently, not browbeat defendants into a Sophie's Choice between their rights and a 10x-disproportionate jail term.

> Every case going to trial would cost an incredibly unreal amount of money

There are other ways of avoiding the trial than threatening the accused. Also there are countries that don't seem to have this problem. Perhaps a look outside the US might suggest some alternative ways of behaving that might be used.

How quickly you would change your tune when innocently imprisoned after being falsely accused. 'Slam dunk guilty' indeed. Of course you'd go to trial. Or would you? 2 or 20?

If I did the crime, I would plea, and it's not even close (requisite hedge: assuming that the plea offer is reasonable -- it might not be for a high profile case that the DA wants to try for political points).

As I have said elsewhere, when the facts are not as clear, the plea offers tend to contrast less starkly with a court sentence as well.

You seem to think that there are a lot of cases where the DA is just making up charges against a totally innocent person. That just happens very rarely. There are some weird domains like CPS/child abuse that have must-try cases for political reasons, but the various actors all know what's going on there and conduct themselves accordingly.

Look, IANAL. I am just telling you what my best friend has told me over the past two decades. If you want to learn more about this, go talk to a defense attorney and ask them their opinion on this matter. I think you will be (pleasantly?) surprised at how reasonable the system usually is.

His point was, what if you DID NOT do the crime?

If I were arrested and charged for a crime I did not do, having to choose between 6 months guilty (_and a felon for life_), or the chance of zero-or-20 years would be Very Difficult. On the one hand, I don't have the money to pay for a good attorney -- which means I'm more likely to lose, bankrupt my family, screw any chance of retirement, etc. On the other hand, pleading guilty to a crime which I know I am innocent of rankles me because of the injustice, but it also is the (game theory wise one) choice that gets me back to my family faster. (Of course then, being a felon, good luck getting a job, so my chances of a good life later are also totally messed up.)

You're looking at this from the perspective of someone who is guilty, and Might Get Away With it. Of course a plea makes sense there. Try looking at it from the perspective of someone falsely accused, though, whose option is either a public defender or being falsely convicted.

Serious question, what crime do you think you could get accused of with "slam dunk" level of evidence that you were actually innocent of?

It takes some serious mental gymnastics (e.g., your doppelganger commits a crime right as you walk by) or you living in a massively corrupt area.

As far as money goes, you can get a publicly appointed attorney that the state pays for if you cannot afford an attorney on your own. Some of these folks are really good, some aren't. That said, if you're totally innocent, no lawyer who has passed the bar should have any trouble getting the charges dropped. Again, DAs don't just sit around trying to frame people for crimes they didn't commit -- they have enough actual work to do.

> That said, if you're totally innocent, no lawyer who has passed the bar should have any trouble getting the charges dropped.

That's...amusing.

> Again, DAs don't just sit around trying to frame people for crimes they didn't commit

Mostly not, it's more likely to be child who conceive of the frame and manufacture evidence (both planting physical evidence and falsifying testimonial evidence.) Plenty of groups of cops have been found doing this, sometimes to cover premeditated police crimes, and sometimes to cover for police errors.

And sometimes the FBI simply invents entire fields of forensic science so that they can have “experts” testify in their (and state) trials to support the guilt of whomever law enforcement is directed at.

The idea that it is trivial for a minimally qualified lawyer to ensure that the factually innocent walk free in America is laughably naive.

" Again, DAs don't just sit around trying to frame people for crimes they didn't commit"

Es a "for example" I suggest that you read about Mike Nifong's (DA on the Duke LaCrosse rape case) actions and his despicable lying. [1]

This may seriously change your opinion on the subject.

DA's regularily lie and cheat for political gain.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case

I’m very familiar with this case. Note that there obviously was not a slam dunk level of evidence, the defendants were declared innocent, and the DA was disbarred. Sounds like the system works to me (although with undue stress).

What percentage of cases do you think are like this? My guess is sub 0.01% — it’s just not that common according to the defense attorneys I know. When it does happen, bar complaints fly. My friend tells me that there definitely are wrongful convictions, but it is often not that the person was innocent of a crime, but that they were convicted of the wrong charge. As far as I am concerned, these types of cases seem to be very much the exception rather than the rule — no system is perfect, and I am fully aware of that.

I have said elsewhere that a corrupt district or DA is a caveat to my stance. Ditto with high profile “must try” cases (I was a juror in one of those). That was a district with a corrupt DA — it happens. The cool thing to me is that the dude was disbarred — the system worked.

I will also add that I think universities interpret rules far too generously (more like guilty until proven innocent), and I don’t agree with that at all, but that does not always become a legal matter. When it does, it is often a must-case for political reasons, and plea deals getnwokky then. I’ve said all of this elsewhere.

Serious question, is it your contention that no lawyer has ever lost a case defending an innocent person, in the entire history of the bar association, because that's just impossible?

Cuz the vast majority of these were not plea bargains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wrongful_convictions_i...

Second answer since I missed your initial point...

If I am actually innocent, there are most likely three scenarios:

1. The DA drops the charges. This is a very common outcome when the case is not a slam dunk.

2. I was a witness to the crime and/or I was in the vicinity of the crime, and for some reason I was not willing to mention this to the DA. This happens a fair bit (esp. the vicinity one), but this is not a "slam dunk guilty" case, and every lawyer will tell you this. My guess is that I would talk to the DA via my lawyer, because I aggressively avoid hanging around places that are likely to have crime (even the white collar variety), and I have nothing to hide.

3. I was framed. This is tricky. My reaction would depend on the context, but again, I keep a healthy distance from people who regularly and knowingly commit crimes.

It seems like a lot of people think that DAs just sit around looking for fake charges to drop on innocent people. This simply does not happen as much as some commenters seem to think it does. Does it happen? Sure. Is this something I ever worry about? No, never.

Do you know of any/many completely innocent people who were wrongly jailed?

The worst I know of is a guy who was trafficking 9,000 pounds of marijuana and got fingered for the whole thing rather than charged as one of three. His issue? He didn't sing and the others did. He got what many would call an unreasonably long sentence given the circumstances (iirc, he did 2 years). Note that a crime had actually been committed (and he admitted to it, at least to friends), so it's not like he was innocent.

You appear to lack knowledge, experience and fantasy, and yet you hold some pretty strong convictions. Based on what I wonder but given that you are so set in your ways I'm not sure what the expected ROI is on trying to educate you. May I suggest project innocence as a starting point?

https://www.innocenceproject.org/

With the note that that is the tip of the proverbial iceberg but if that doesn't convince you that you are flat-out wrong I don't know what will.

Honestly, I don’t even care that someone is slam dunk guilty. They have an absolute affirmative right to a jury trial and trying to manipulate them away from exercising that right is unequivocally evil.

Guess what, jury nullification is a thing. So even if they’re 110% guilty and the evidence is incontrovertible, the jury of their peers may judge that the law in question was unjust and the charge unfair and acquit them anyway.

They have the right. Period. No equivocation.

> Going to trial just because you can even though your case is a slam dunk guilty verdict is an abuse of privelege, imho.

It's a right, not a privilege. There is a fundamental difference.

Economy of justice is an important consideration in the civil system but if there are too many criminal cases for courts to providing way the process to which there is a constitutional right, that's a problem of the legislative branch criminalizng too much conduct or underfunding courts or the executive branch engaging in overzealous prosecution. Rigorous questioning of criminal cases isn't just a right of the accused, it is the manner in which the public if assured that real crimes are being properly prosecuted rather than the government lazily scapegoating convenient, vulnerable targets while the real perpetrators go free.

Consider this. You are guilty of at least one felony offence under the laws of both state and federal legislation of the USA. Irrespective of what you may think about your innocence, the excuse that you did not know the law is irrelevant before the courts (unless you are a LEO), you are still guilty and the appropriate penalty is spending time in prison.

All it will take is some LEO or prosecutor to decide to come after you and you will be facing the very thing that any others have faced.

> abuse of privelege

Due process and a fair trial are rights, not privileges.

> an abuse of privelege

What privilege?

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