Comment by 0xcde4c3db
1 year ago
Most of it these days is less about being intelligent enough and more about whether you're positioned to encounter or hear about a "chilling effect" [1]. Historians will probably only ever be able to debate order-of-magnitude estimates of how many students gave up protesting because of the Kent State shootings, or how many writers "self-censored" because of PRISM/XKeyscore [2], or how many people decide not to exercise their Second Amendment rights because they don't want to risk being categorized as "armed" in a police encounter [3] [4].
One example that's a bit more concrete is the combination of pre-trial detention and plea bargains. These form, in effect, a punishment for exercising one's right to a fair trial, a punishment that exists because our court system is quite far from having the capacity to properly handle the sheer volume of prosecutions that occur [5].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
[2] https://pen.org/report/chilling-effects/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Philando_Castile
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver
[5] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/12/26/plea-bargainin...
As an attorney, I find your plea bargain argument unpersuasive. Major themes in the criminal justice system are acknowledgment of guilt and acceptance of responsibility. These are going to work against you after spending a year claiming you didn’t do it if the jury decides you did.
Well... I think the NSA should be abolished!