Comment by Ensorceled
16 days ago
This is naive.
You are arrested for a crime you didn't commit. The prosecution charges you with a serious crime with punishment of years in prison. Your lawyer can't guarantee you'll be found not guilty and you'll be in jail for a least a year until the trial because you can't make bail. The DA then offers a plea bargain to a lessor crime with several months in prison.
Lots of innocent people would, and do, plead guilty to the lessor crime.
Talk about naive. The vast majority of innocent people would never plead guilty to a crime they didn't commit. Don't apply such things to normal people with better intelligence.
The vast majority would absolutely plead guilty.
If you cannot afford a lawyer, and the prosecution offers you a choice:
a) Go to trial. Lose your job. Get life altering debt. Spend a year or more stressfully fighting. Have your movements controlled, maybe be imprisoned. And THEN maybe you get proven innocent. Then there's a risk you get found guilty and face severe consequences.
b) Say you are guilty. Promise to pay a couple grand. You go home to your family tonight. Keep your nose clean and we'll seal the record in three years.
Tons of people would choose the latter.
Again, it doesn't happen to tons of people or to normal people. Quit reading Reddit headlines and look around you unless that is the type of people in your life. Certainly not mine or anyone I know
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