Joanna
Mr. WD wrote:
>Frankly, the reason most criminal defendants plead guilty is because
>they are guilty -- or at least the evidence against them is so
>overwhelming they're virtually guaranteed to be convicted at trial.
>The old saying amongst criminal defense attorneys is "God help you if
>you have an innocent client" because it hurts a hell of a lot more to
>get an unfavorable outcome in a case where your guy is innocent than
>if you're merely asserting a guilty defendant's procedural rights.
>
>To be sure, there is plenty of abuse of the plea bargaining system by
>Prosecutors -- much more than most establishment observers of the
>American legal system would care to admit. Nevertheless, it is beyond
>naive to think (and I am not suggesting that you do, Doug) that a
>substantial proportion of the people in jail, prison, or who are on
>probation/parole are actually innocent. A far larger proportion of
>convictions in the United States are obtained by violating defendants'
>constitutional rights (e.g. unlawful searches and seizures,
>ineffective assistance of counsel, improperly obtained confessions,
>etc.).
>
>-WD
>
>
>On 5/9/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On May 9, 2007, at 5:22 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote:
>>
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>>
>>>Personally, I'd rather see her wearing a signboard out in front of
>>>one of the clubs she frequents, but I haven't given it much more
>>>thought than that. I was in favor of freeing Martha Stewart though.
>>>
>>>
>>Martha was a victim of the federal practice of trying to trap people
>>into lying to a federal agent just to jail them, even if they weren't
>>necessarily guilty of a crime in the first place. That's really
>>sleazy and outrageous.
>>
>>By the way, I saw some stats recently about how few cases actually go
>>to trial now (at the state/local level as well as the federal).
>>Defendants are threatened with long prison terms and encouraged to
>>agree to a plea bargain, which nets them just a few years behind
>>bars. Anyone see these? I can't recover them...
>>___________________________________
>>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
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