2 Comments

  • I have always thought that if you create too broad a gulf between the plea sentence and the guilty verdict sentence, you distort due process or even the right to a jury trial. Even for a defendant for which there is moderate evidence of guilt, he’s still got the right. If you “punish” him after the fact with a disproportionate sentence, you’ve interfered with the right. I think that a mild difference, in order to encourage pleas in cases with decent evidence, is OK. But the gaping differences in the federal system seem designed to frighten the barely-culpable into pleading guilty.

  • Please quit calling it plea bargaining, and call it what it really is, plea extortion. Figuratively speaking, the DA points two guns at the defendant, one large caliber, one small caliber. If you take the plea, he shoots you with the smaller caliber gun. He informs you that if you don’t take the plea, he will shoot you with the larger caliber gun if you lose at trial. Although, if you win, he can’t shoot you at all.

    Given the usual disparity in punishments between taking a plea vs. going to trial and facing stiffer/harsher punishments if you lose, most will take the plea, even if they are innocent.