But Wikipedia covers why the plea system is horrifying is pretty great detail:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargain
The American justice system from a foreigner's perspective just seems like a revolving door punishment system with almost no reform, and one where money plays a MASSIVE part. If you're rich you won't spend any time in jail, and you likely won't be convicted even if guilty. If you're poor you can be innocent and still have to plead guilty because you lack the $100K you'd need to mount a real defence (and you'd still lose).
I genuinely believe there are some good individuals in the US justice system, but most of the people at the top and the politicised prosecutors, politicians, and judges just ruin it. You could easily improve American justice tomorrow by scraping most pleas, re-introducing the right to a speedy trial (e.g. 12 months in jail to be found innocent is immoral/unjust), and increasing public defender funding significantly (at least 20x).
- Common law vs Civil law... reliance more on legal precedent than on codified laws makes the legal field unnecessarily complex. If common-law defenses or other considerations are not included in the plain text of codified laws, the codified laws need to be fixed.
- Adversarial system vs inquisitional system. These need not be disjoint. Some sort of hybrid where the judge (and jury) can ask pointed questions of witnesses, or ask for elaboration on some point a lawyer is making, seems prudent. That's not to say the adversarial system is entirely bad. The notion, at least in civil cases, and for the defense in criminal cases, that the parties need their own dedicated advocate, is certainly valuable.
- Too many laws. The externalities of creating more and more laws seem lost on legislators (figuratively speaking; not truly lost, but ignored, since it ensures job security for lawyers).
- Reform of the incentives for prosecutors. The objective should not be to win cases, but to serve the public interest. Criminal prosecutions should not really have dedicated advocates intent on trying to convict the defendant, but that's what prosecutors in the United States usually are. Rating prosecutors by conviction rates is absurd unless you've already decided that every defendant is guilty.
Untrue. Its also reasonable if you assume that the legal system outside of the prosecutor works perfectly, and therefore, independent of the prosecutors actions, no innocent defendant will be convicted. With that assumption, a high conviction rate means that the prosecutor is serving the public interest by not charging the innocent.
Of course, reality deviates from this in a number of ways, most critically in the high rate of plea bargains and the lack of evidence testing in the case of plea bargains.
"A defendant is a person or entity accused of a crime in criminal prosecution or a person or entity against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case." [0]
I wouldn't say what he said is untrue, you're just refuting his statement based on the definition of a defendant (whether a defendant is someone charged with a crime vs being prosecuted against). Sounds like you have different definitions that lead to slightly different relations of the same situation.
A prosecutor has two roles. One is to select people to make into defendants, and the other is to try and get those defendants convicted. If we imagine that a prosecutor cannot get an innocent person convicted, then judging them by conviction rate is first judging them by their ability to choose the guilty to prosecute. You've not decided that every defendant is guilty - you've decided that every defendant should be guilty.
Imagine a sieve, designed to collect pebbles larger than 30mm. If you've already decided that every pebble collected is larger than 30mm, you have no need to examine the performance of the sieve. If you're wondering whether the sieve is catching smaller things, then you look at the collected pebbles, and it is quite reasonable to count smaller pebbles against the performance of the sieve.
Of course, our assumption there certainly doesn't hold perfectly, and may very well hold poorly enough that we significantly reward "ability to get the innocent convicted". But dragonwriter basically said as much.
No, pretty much the opposite -- instead, you are assuming that not all defendants are guilty, but that all non-guilty defendants (and only non-guilty defendants) will be exonerated, such that the the rate of non-conviction represents the rate at which the prosecutor attempts to prosecute innocent victims.
> I wouldn't say what he said is untrue, you're just refuting his statement based on the definition of a defendant (whether a defendant is someone charged with a crime vs being prosecuted against).
Those aren't different definitions, they are alternative phrasing of the same definitions. Filing charges is initiating prosecution.
Just to illustrate using your ideas (which I'm absolutely all for), all three of them cost public money. We would have more trials requiring more time in front of judges, but they would need to be speedier, so we would simply need to pay more judges salaries. A similar calculation suggests we would need to pay more public defenders, and if I'm interpreting your last point correctly, we would also want to pay them 20% more than we do currently. So we need a strategy for selling the tax increases at least at the state level – because the districts most affected by these cost increases are probably the least wealthy – and perhaps the federal level. Not many people will care enough that we aren't treating criminals (which is what people who have been arrested are, to most people) well enough to pay extra taxes.
So I guess, what's the strategy to push us onto a path outside this spiral?
Only pursue cases that are slam dunk prioritized by cases that have highest social benefits.
More community service based punishment. None resulting in rap sheet.
Drastically reduce jury system.
Pay Clawback and impose penalty on judge and prosecutors for wrongful convictions. Hit their collective pay pool.
I disagree with this conclusion: It's too easy to blame someone else, a way of maintaining our own sense of innocence. Things happen in a democracy when voters insist on it. I'm willing to bet that nobody reading this will do anything about this problem. The great majority will not even vote for their local politicians and can't even name them besides governor and mayor (try it: name your state legislators and judges). EDIT: How many reading this would serve if called for jury or grand jury duty?
Finally, the political elite behave the same all over the country. That's either a massive coincidence of bad apples or it's a systematic problem. Most people reading this would (and some probably do) behave the same in those situations.
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo (Walt Kelly)
The voting system in the United States is rather uniquely damaged with its first-past-the-post (majoritarian) elections, over a century's worth of gerrymandering that goes on strong as ever, stringent ballot access laws, public debate restrictions (which I take became stronger after Ross Perot) and so on.
It has all been meticulously crafted so that the odds are against any form of profound change, but rather to enforce the party dichotomy and have representatives maintain a comfortable status quo. The aforementioned gerrymandering strongly encourages vehement and almost parade-like, but ultimately empty and financially wasteful political campaigns, along with focusing one's efforts on leaving an impression only in certain key states and districts that are really decisive to one's performance.
Yet even people who are well versed in statistics and probability often seem to grant an exception for the insanity of voting in the United States, out of a perverse democratic ideal that ultimately isn't really there. Without some truly disruptive changes to how elections are structured (hardly a trivial matter, what with the rather fundamental chilling effect they'd have on how people have been doing things for so long), I personally find voting to be not worth one's time.
I'm no rah-rah booster of American politics by any means--I think they're corrupted almost beyond recognition, especially at the federal level--but I still don't see any better way to enact a government by and for the people than to cast a vote for how we feel every so often.
And from where I sit, it's working, in fits and starts, to make a better world:
* In my state, and the neighboring state, cannabis is now legal, and you can go buy yourself some pot at a retail store with nothing but cash and an ID to verify age
* Across the country, freelancers like me can now buy health insurance, where before it was so ridiculously expensive, it felt like throwing away thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars every year
* At the local level, a nearby jurisdiction is working to ban criminal background checks on job applications, to reduce the barriers for ex-cons to re-enter the workforce
* Minimum wage laws in municipalities along the west coast are helping lift up the always-hard-working, always-underpaid lowest class of workers
This is all stuff that comes either from direct citizen participation, or for voting for someone who had that as a part of their policy platform.
Can I vote to end American meddling in the middle east? No, and that's frustrating. Can I vote to get some national recognition on the science of climate change? No, though I can vote for people who acknowledge it (and I do).
But can voting change the world you live in? Oh yes.
It seems like you totally misunderstand my point because to you "voting" is synonymous with majoritarian elections.
You're raising legitimate complaints about the brokenness of our voting system, and I agree. I'd like to see other voting systems put into place at local/state levels, with an eye toward implementing them nationally; something like range voting, or one of the other "pick your favorites" voting schemes.
Where I get the biggest sense of frustration in your post, it's the sense that we can't do much with our votes, e.g. when you said "the odds are against any form of profound change" and "I personally find voting to be not worth one's time".
Well, yeah, a vote on its own isn't enough to make the change you want to see. You do have to get involved, if people aren't already organized at getting your ideas out there, to get it to the level of being voted on.
My pot legalization example, I voted on that, but I know people who were involved in the GOTV efforts, the initiative process, the whole nine yards. But the whole years-long campaign culminated in a vote, the final test of "does the public buy our argument?"
Tell them about how it isn't even worth bothering to vote.
> the odds are against any form of profound change
Yet profound change happens over and over again. Segregation is now gone (and the black middle class has exploded in size) and women are now educated and work in greater numbers than men. Recently extreme conservative policies have been imposed on the nation. Or just look closely at a photo of the current President of the United States and see if you notice something surprising.
I agree there are many serious problems, but it's hardly hopeless.
EDIT: I realize my post said that the U.S. is the best at all those things. I didn't meant to be taken that literally; my fault. To be more precise, relative to most of humanity through most of history (i.e., not relative to goals and principles of freedom, prosperity, justice, etc.), the U.S. does exceptionally well. Regardless, the argument I was making doesn't rely on the U.S. being at the very top in everything.
Not the freest (press, 46th): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index#Rankings_a...
Not the healthiest (5th): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index#2014_r...
Not the safest: (108th lowest intentional homicide rate, 2nd most incarcerated nation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...
Now you're just being jingoistic.
Prosperity I can give you, but safety (which does not trump liberty, I'm afraid) and health are areas where the USA lags behind. What categories would you use to determine safety anyway - crime rates in general, murder rates, the level of security theater?
Freedom is a quality which evades measurement. There's plenty of countries which have greater social mobility, personal autonomy and social acceptance of historically deviant behaviors than the USA.
Segregation is now gone (and the black middle class has exploded in size)
How is this relevant to voting or mending deeply flawed mechanics of how the government is run? The civil rights movement got rid of heinous barriers, it didn't make any changes to fundamental technical workings.
women are now educated and work in greater numbers than men
The Western world sort of convened on this at around the same time period.
Or just look closely at a photo of the current President of the United States and see if you notice something surprising.
Highly skilled communicator, policies no different from the norm over the past few decades. Oh, and black. Right.
Maybe 40-50 years ago (if you were white). Maybe. Absolutely not today.
The USA? That's a laughable claim.
Income inequality (Gini coefficient, CIA Gini): EU: 30.4 US: 45
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...
Life expectancy at birth: EU: 80.02 US: 79.56
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world...
Infant mortality (per 1000 live births): EU: 4.33 US: 6.17
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world...
Homicide rate: Europe (as a whole): 3.0 US: 4.7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
Freedom of the press index (lower is better): EU (weighted by population): 17.32 US: 18.22
In short, the way the plea bargaining system developed was due to the jury system being too ineffective and time consuming in producing convictions. Thus the workaround which forces innocent people into accepting charges.
Beyond facing a greater sentence, to fight the most minor of misdemeanor charges will cost $2,000 to $5,000 for a lawyer or just pay $250 and get it reduced to an infraction like jaywalking. It makes a mockery of the idea of justice.
This way the truth and justice actually wins out. As opposed to murderers getting off on a technicality or cops lying with impunity and ruining innocent people's lives.
Of course, the above would still not obviate the need for entrapment defense etc.
I absolutely agree with this. Police officers need to uphold a higher standard.
> If the cop wants to lie to get a conviction, they should be able to do it BUT also pay for their lie.
The problem is that while an individual police officer might be not very willing to do things like write false and questionable tickets, police administrators and local government people would love that extra income without having to raise taxes (or do other things that invite scrutiny or would make them look bad). I bet if things like these were admissible, there would be pressure to go get them and fabricate the backstory on how the evidence/information was obtained. Granted things like this already happen but I am afraid this might even make the blue code of silence stronger.
Individual police officers are people and have ethics and morals. However, they are subject to bribery, coercion, and promise of a reward for conforming like anyone else. I'm afraid the risks of allowing fruits of poisonous trees would outweigh the benefits.
(Which isn't to say that stacking up a lot of questionable charges to force a plea bargain is reasonable or fair. However, I don't see anything wrong with the basic idea of plea bargains.)
Say the prosecutor offers you 6 months for a plea, or 3 years in jail if it goes to court. Unless you can place odds of winning at 85%+, even the rational would take the plea.
Chances are, most of the people who face such deals are poor, probably not particularly clever and will have terrible lawyers. So the plea looks increasingly the best choice, even if they didn't do the crime, or even if only a few of the charges will be able to stick.
- Get arrested. Lose your job.
- Spend 3-12 months in jail awaiting trial.
- Spend $50,000-100,000 on lawyers and legal fees.
- Spend another 1-3 months in jail during the trial stages.
- Get found "innocent."
- Get release only to find that the local TV shows splashed your mugshot all over the TV related to whatever crime you're accused, reputation ruined, you have to move.
So now you're destitute, homeless, jobless, and lost all told two years of your life. But at least you "won" the trial. Big win that...
When I was younger, a local judge came to visit my Boy Scout troop and discuss the justice system. I don't remember what question I asked him, partially because he never answered it. The answer never came because I touched on an incredibly sensitive pet peeve of his - defendants are never found "innocent". They are merely found "not guilty".
He went on to explain that the court can't find you innocent, because no one who goes to court is innocent. You "obviously" had made some mistakes with your life if you were on trial in his court room. His duty was to decide if you deserved to go to prison for those mistakes.
It was a long time ago, so I only remember bits and pieces of the other parts of his lecture. The part where he talked about how things went so much more smoothly and quickly when he could talk to the defendant directly without his lawyer still sticks in my mind.
The presumption of innocence combined with the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of proof means that, in a wide variety of criminal cases, the defendant is quite possibly or even very likely guilty but there is still reasonable doubt.
That means that the finding is necessarily something we call "not guilty," as that's the literal finding of the court. We do not find you guilty and this matter is closed. It is not a finding of innocence and so is not reported as such.
Simplistically, compare the difference in the NFL replay system of "the ruling on the field is confirmed" vs "the ruling on the field stands". The latter is the gray area and both are reported as "not guilty" in the criminal system (in the US).
In that case the plea bargin looks like it helps society, not hurts.
If you take 10% reduction in exchange for not wasting everyone's time is one thing ... but taking one year when facing possible 40 is absurd.