LAW: The Plea Bargain
When facing a charge from infallible science, the defendant may become overwhemled and concerned more so for liberty than proving innocents. As a recent post showed, a teenager was facing an indictment for the murder of his sister, and confessed, due to the infallible "Voice Stress Analyzer". It was his belief that maybe he couldn't remember, and even told the story, then a more valid science pointed to the guilty transient, and the inventor of the "Voice Stress Analyzer" couldn't even muster an apology.
In the wonderful world of court imposed treatment, the consequences are not nearly as severe, and the alternative, allthough regressive, the better option.
A recent article by Radley Balko elaborates:
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette takes a fair look at plea bargaining, and entertains the possibility that the system has evolved to the point where prosecutors intentionally over-charge, and defendants are effectively punished for exercising their constitutional right to a trial.
Nationally, for fiscal year 2004, 95.5 percent of the 51,666 convictions were reached through guilty pleas. That means that only 2,316 U.S. District Court cases across the country went to trial.
In the Western District of Pennsylvania, the percentage was just a bit lower. Of the 261 convictions that year, 94.3 percent were reached through pleas.
Mr. Kramer, who now teaches at Penn State University, believes the American court system has been acclimated to processing guilty pleas.
"We've created a barrier to any potential increase in jury trials," he said. "If all of a sudden we had a 20 percent increase, it would be tremendously burdensome on the court system to accommodate those."
[...]
"It's a perfectly laughable system," he said. "The prosecutors love it. The message is any sane defendant, guilty or innocent, ought to do the prosecutor's bidding."
Not surprisingly, the money quote comes from our old friend, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan:
"Of course it leads to disparity and different sentences," said Mary Beth Buchanan, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. "But it's supposed to. It's designed to give a reduction to those who readily take responsibility and admit their conduct."
Or those who've done nothing wrong, but are scared to death of the excessively long sentences that could await them at trial thank to prosecutors who pile on charges to extract a plea.
Cato's Tim Lynch looks at how the plea bargain has devolved into a prosecutorial weapon here.
A weapon, loaded with unfounded science and pointed at anyone accused. While a research on EtG testing states,"This subject also presented one of the positive EtG results (0.60 mg/l) during the placebo period, the origin of which is unknown.", then procedes to cite," However, it should always be considered that self-reports of alcohol consumption may have low accuracy.", that is an understatement. I'am convinced that there are more of the admitted drinkers, than there are actual drinkers when it comes to continuous monitoring.
Dr. Skipper-The people that we confront who have a positive and it seems like it has to do with how confident you are that it's actually positive, but when you press them and say it's in your urine, we're fairly confident that you drank, it seems to very commonly elicit admission of drinking...............Using the loaded weapon, and the client if court ordered, will have an extended screening period ($)................now that's why I just call it TREATMENT. They propagate the EtG test with finding surreptitious drinkers, so any false-positive can be identified!
In the wonderful world of court imposed treatment, the consequences are not nearly as severe, and the alternative, allthough regressive, the better option.
A recent article by Radley Balko elaborates:
The Pittsburgh Post Gazette takes a fair look at plea bargaining, and entertains the possibility that the system has evolved to the point where prosecutors intentionally over-charge, and defendants are effectively punished for exercising their constitutional right to a trial.
Nationally, for fiscal year 2004, 95.5 percent of the 51,666 convictions were reached through guilty pleas. That means that only 2,316 U.S. District Court cases across the country went to trial.
In the Western District of Pennsylvania, the percentage was just a bit lower. Of the 261 convictions that year, 94.3 percent were reached through pleas.
Mr. Kramer, who now teaches at Penn State University, believes the American court system has been acclimated to processing guilty pleas.
"We've created a barrier to any potential increase in jury trials," he said. "If all of a sudden we had a 20 percent increase, it would be tremendously burdensome on the court system to accommodate those."
[...]
"It's a perfectly laughable system," he said. "The prosecutors love it. The message is any sane defendant, guilty or innocent, ought to do the prosecutor's bidding."
Not surprisingly, the money quote comes from our old friend, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan:
"Of course it leads to disparity and different sentences," said Mary Beth Buchanan, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. "But it's supposed to. It's designed to give a reduction to those who readily take responsibility and admit their conduct."
Or those who've done nothing wrong, but are scared to death of the excessively long sentences that could await them at trial thank to prosecutors who pile on charges to extract a plea.
Cato's Tim Lynch looks at how the plea bargain has devolved into a prosecutorial weapon here.
A weapon, loaded with unfounded science and pointed at anyone accused. While a research on EtG testing states,"This subject also presented one of the positive EtG results (0.60 mg/l) during the placebo period, the origin of which is unknown.", then procedes to cite," However, it should always be considered that self-reports of alcohol consumption may have low accuracy.", that is an understatement. I'am convinced that there are more of the admitted drinkers, than there are actual drinkers when it comes to continuous monitoring.
Dr. Skipper-The people that we confront who have a positive and it seems like it has to do with how confident you are that it's actually positive, but when you press them and say it's in your urine, we're fairly confident that you drank, it seems to very commonly elicit admission of drinking...............Using the loaded weapon, and the client if court ordered, will have an extended screening period ($)................now that's why I just call it TREATMENT. They propagate the EtG test with finding surreptitious drinkers, so any false-positive can be identified!
posted by marcellus91872 at 1:43 AM
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