<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <html><head><style type="text/css"></style><title>Re: Bad guys and burdens of proof (Was H Rap Brown)</title></head><body> <div>At 7:03 PM -0800 24/11/02, andie nachgeborenen wrote:</div> <div><br></div> <blockquote type="cite" cite> <blockquote>jks. Well, thanks, but even the best lawyer can't do much for a lot of defendants. The best lawyer I ever saw, now the head of Justice Crim Investigation, was defending a tax fraudster, he was awesome, it was like watching Baryshnikov dance. His client was convicted, there was nothing to be done on that evidence. I suspect he'd advised the client to cop a plea, and the client refused. The hard fact is -- sorry Bill, this will convince you even more than you already believe I am total sell-out -- most criminal defendants are guilty, and most of them are obviously guilty. Ask any defense lawyer, which is what I am, never mind the prosecutors. We do our best, but mainly the best we can do is to plead to a lesser charge.</blockquote> </blockquote> <div><br></div> <div>I accept most criminal defendants are guilty and I have never said you were a total sell-out. Would you please stop putting words in my mouth, I have my work cut out for me defending some of the things I *do* say.</div> <div><br></div> <div>But, outside of the blinkered world of mandatory sentencing, there's more to trials than merely guilt or innocence, there's a whole world of determining how serious the crime was, what the mitigating circumstances are, how sorry the offender is, what are the chances of re-offending, etc. The point is that these should properly be determined in open court, not the back rooms of police and prosecutors.</div> <div><br></div> <div>Mandatory sentencing takes all these decisions out of the courts and allows the police and prosecutors to decide, by deciding what to charge the offender with. It is a perversion of justice.</div> <div><br></div> <div>Bill Bartlett</div> <div>Bracknell Tas</div> </body> </html>