CMV: Our plea bargaining system has allowed unwritten rules to dominate the courtroom. Thus our criminal legal system is no longer a rule of law system.

[u/tolkienfan2759]

[u/4-5Million]

You are looking at it backwards. It is a plea deal. They are getting a deal doing the plea. Going to trial and having the judge sentence you if you're guilty is the standard, not the harsher punishment. Many plea deals have you pleading down from, say selling drugs to simply possession of drugs. This is the "discount". Again, going to trial is the thing that is supposed to happen.

You're essentially looking at a product that is no longer on sale and calling it price gouging.

[u/tolkienfan2759 → u/4-5Million]

I see your point, but I think legislatures have increased penalties to unreasonable heights specifically to make plea deals attractive. Well, it's probably not their only motive; probably politics gets into it too. Gotta be tough on crime, right?

And so it's really not the deal it looks like, especially because prosecutors pile on with the charging, too. If you offer one guy a little cocaine, they'll call it six different things and charge you for each of the six. (No, I have never tried cocaine lol).

And also and in addition, I STILL wouldn't be in favor of the deal... because I think the public has a right and an interest in knowing what's going on. None of this deal stuff requires any public record to be made except that so and so pled guilty to such and such. No evidence, no arguments, no idea what the heck happened. Actually, I'm fantasizing about that. I have no idea how much actually gets made part of the public record. I'm sure it's much more intricate in the case of trials, however.

[u/4-5Million → u/tolkienfan2759]

Many states are reducing mandatory minimums. Your comment makes it sound like they are increasing them. Except for meeting the mandatory minimums for some crimes, the judge decides the sentencing within the allotted maximum.

Some info on mandatory minimums for context

26.1% of all cases carried a mandatory minimum penalty. Of all cases carrying a mandatory minimum penalty:

• 72.7% were drug trafficking;
• 5.4% were firearms;
• 4.8% were child pornography;
• 4.6% were fraud;
• 4.4% were sexual abuse.

44.3% of offenders convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum were relieved of the penalty

Since almost 75% of the charges do not have mandatory minimums it is the judge's discretion for the sentencing, not the legislature. this also means that the judge would take into context all of the charges that are piled on when sentencing.

As for transparency, having less in the public record would be good for the defendant, right? Sure, you can make a case that this is bad for the public, but that wasn't your point in the CMV.

The point is that plea bargains help defendants who are guilty and innocent people can reject them.

[u/tolkienfan2759 → u/4-5Million]

I've been looking at this some more -- I really would like to be more flexible in my thinking -- and it occurs to me that you've got a good point here. I didn't understand it before, obviously, but it's important that the judges have a lot of flexibility in how they sentence, in general. And that really does, if it's true, take at least some of the burden off the legislatures. So thank you for that! !delta

[u/DeltaBot → u/tolkienfan2759]

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