Comment by preg_match
21 hours ago
Re: plea deals. Most people don't know that plea deals are very common. Over 90% of convictions come from plea deals.
It's not just that lawyers are expensive and court is risky. Court also takes fucking forever. Somewhere along the way, a right to a speedy trial has been lost. People have jobs they have to get back to, families they have to provide for. The plea deal is often a way out right now, with the tradeoff of having a conviction.
Even if you're 100% innocent, it's often the better financial choice to just... take a guilty plea. The end result is we can't really say, for sure, how many convictions are actually guilty people.
The calculus gets even more complicated when we consider race. If you're a large black man, are you really going to want to take the chance in trial? If you're a meek white woman, you might be more inclined.
This is one of those places where our failure to teach history and civics is failing the American people.
It's Adams defending British solders, and later being very much a supporter of the concept of jury nullification. The fact that the modern court has been allowed to not only block the distribution of this information, but actively seeks to tell jurors that they HAVE to follow the law is, to be blunt, a disgrace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty
No more of this nonsense around "arbitration" being OK. Take it all to court, force it to be on the public record.
Not to mention pre-trial detainment becoming more broadly used, and bail being an effective poor tax.