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> The 20 (that seemed high to him for a 2 year plea) is a fuck you for going to trial

So you get an 18-year "fuck you" for invoking your Sixth Amendment right to a trial by an impartial jury of your peers?

.... when the evidence is stacked heavily agaisnt the defendant. For more marginal cases, the offers tend to be much less punitive.

Look, I'm not a lawyer. You may want to go talk to one -- especially a public defense lawyer. Your eyes will be open about how fantastically reasonable the system usually (intentional hedge word -- not all DAs or judges are reasonable, but most are) is.

So every non-violent drug offender should just take their multi-year sentence to third-world-tier prisons and their felon status too and be happy with it?

Pretty much. Once you’re negotiating with a DA, you’re going to jail. They’re never gonna let you go.

I suppose my comment was intended to highlight the relative absurdity of punishing non-violent drug offenses with jail time.

It quite literally creates career criminals out of non-criminals, since, once they have a crime on their record, virtually all avenues of employment are closed off to them besides violent/property crime.

"Fantastically reasonable" is an interesting way of describing the legal system punishing the greatest number of prisoners in the world.

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