United States Forced Guilty Pleas in Drug Cases

[greengummybear]

US: Forced Guilty Pleas in Drug Cases
Threat of Draconian Sentences Means Few Willing to Risk Trial
December 5, 2013




An Offer You Can’t Refuse
How US Federal Prosecutors Force Drug Defendants to Plead Guilty


(New York) – Federal prosecutors routinely threaten extraordinarily severe prison sentences to coerce drug defendants into waiving their right to trial and pleading guilty, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. In the rare cases in which defendants insist on going to trial, prosecutors make good on their threats. Federal drug offenders convicted after trial receive sentences on average three times as long as those who accept a plea bargain, according to new statistics developed by Human Rights Watch.

The 126-page report, “An Offer You Can’t Refuse: How US Federal Prosecutors Force Drug Defendants to Plead Guilty,” details how prosecutors throughout the United States extract guilty pleas from federal drug defendants by charging or threatening to charge them with offenses carrying harsh mandatory sentences and by seeking additional mandatory increases to those sentences. Prosecutors offer defendants a much lower sentence in exchange for pleading guilty. Since drug defendants rarely prevail at trial, it is not surprising that 97 percent of them decide to plead guilty.

“Prosecutors give drug defendants a so-called choice – in the most egregious cases, the choice can be to plead guilty to 10 years, or risk life without parole by going to trial,” said Jamie Fellner, senior advisor to the US Program at Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “Prosecutors make offers few drug defendants can refuse. This is coercion pure and simple.”

In the 1980s, when Congress enacted mandatory minimum sentencing statutes, lawmakers intended 10-year minimum sentences for drug kingpins and five years for mid-level traffickers. But because the laws key the sentence to the weight and type of drug, and not the specific role of the offender, prosecutors can levy the same charges with the same mandatory sentence against a courier who delivers a package of drugs and the head of a drug organization to whom the drugs are delivered. Nearly half – 48 percent – of federal drug defendants have low-level functions such as street-level dealer or courier, and half to three-quarters of them are convicted of offenses carrying mandatory minimum sentences.

Prosecutors also pressure drug defendants to plead by threatening increased mandatory sentencing enhancements and penalties that are applicable if the defendant has one or more prior drug convictions or possessed a gun at the time of the offense. If the prosecutors carry out their threats, they add decades to the defendant’s time behind bars, resulting in punishments that, as one federal judge, John Gleeson of New York’s Eastern District, recently put it, are “so excessively severe they take your breath away.”

In one of hundreds of cases Human Rights Watch reviewed, Sandra Avery, a small-time drug dealer, rejected a plea of 10 years for possessing 50 grams of crack cocaine with intent to deliver. The prosecutor triggered a sentencing enhancement based on her prior convictions for simple drug possession, and she was sentenced to life without parole.

In addition to case reviews, the report is also based on numerous interviews with federal prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges. It also includes new statistics developed by Human Rights Watch that provide the most recent and detailed measure of what the report calls the “trial penalty” – the difference in sentences for drug defendants who pled guilty compared with those for defendants convicted after trial. The trial penalty is, essentially, the price prosecutors make defendants pay for exercising their right to trial.

“Going to trial is a right, not a crime,” Fellner said. “But defendants are punished with longer sentences for exercising that right.”

Prosecutors are able to impose the trial penalty because judges have been reduced to virtual bystanders in cases involving mandatory sentences. When prosecutors choose to pursue mandatory penalties and the defendant is convicted, judges must impose the sentences. They cannot exercise their traditional role of tailoring sentences to each defendant’s conduct and culpability and of making sentences no longer than necessary to serve the purposes of punishment.

Plea bargaining is broadly accepted largely on the pragmatic ground that if every criminal case went to trial, the overburdened criminal justice system would grind to a halt, and the US Supreme Court has accepted this logic in decisions sanctioning plea bargains. But under human rights principles – and longstanding principles of criminal justice in the United States – criminal sentences should be no greater than necessary to hold offenders accountable and protect the public.

Prosecutors favor mandatory sentences because they enhance their leverage not only to get convictions via pleas, but to get defendants to cooperate with the government in the prosecution of others in exchange for a lower sentence. “We don’t let police beat suspects to get confessions,” said Fellner. “Threatening someone with a life sentence can be just as coercive – and just as wrong.”

In August 2013, Attorney General Eric Holder instructed federal prosecutors to avoid charging certain low-level nonviolent offenders with offenses carrying mandatory minimum sentences and to avoid seeking mandatory sentencing enhancements based on prior convictions unless the defendant’s conduct warranted such severe sanctions. It is too soon to tell how prosecutors will carry out the policies, but they contain easily exploited loopholes and do not prohibit prosecutors from pursuing harsh sentences against any defendant who refuses to plead.

Moreover, if prosecutors ignore the letter or spirit of Holder’s policies there is no remedy. If a defendant is convicted, the judge must impose the applicable mandatory minimum sentences or sentencing enhancements sought by the prosecutor.

The attorney general should direct prosecutors to seek proportionate sentences for all drug offenders whether they plead or go to trial, Human Rights Watch said. He should prohibit prosecutors from threatening or seeking greatly increased sentences simply because defendants refuse to plead. Even more important, the US Congress should eliminate mandatory minimum sentences and sentencing enhancements for drug offenders so that judges may use their judgment when setting sentences.

“Independent federal judges who have no personal or institutional stake in the outcome should have the final say over sentencing,” Fellner said. “Judges should have the discretion to ensure that defendants in drug cases receive sentences proportionate to their crimes, not their willingness to plead guilty.”

The new statistics Human Rights Watch developed for the report, based on raw federal sentencing data for 2012, include the following:

• The average sentence for federal drug offenders who pled guilty was five years, four months; for those convicted after trial the average sentence was sixteen years.

• For drug defendants convicted of offenses carrying mandatory minimum sentences, those who pled guilty had an average sentence of 82.5 months compared with 215 months for those convicted after trial, a difference of 11 years.

• Among drug defendants with prior felony convictions, the odds of receiving a sentencing enhancement based on those convictions was 8.4 times greater for those who went to trial than for those who pled guilty.

• Among drug defendants with a gun involved in their offense, the odds of receiving the statutory gun sentencing enhancement were 2.5 times greater for those who went to trial than for those who pled guilty.

The following are some of the cases documented in the report:

• After Mary Beth Looney, a first-time offender, refused a plea of 17 years for dealing methamphetamines and possessing guns in her home, the prosecutor filed a superseding indictment increasing her charges. Convicted after trial, Looney was sentenced to 45-and-a-half years in prison.

• Lashonda Hall was originally charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and crack and faced a 10-year sentence. When she did not plead guilty, prosecutors filed a superseding indictment increasing the drug counts and adding two weapons counts. Convicted after trial, Hall was sentenced to 45-and-a-half years.

• Roy Lee Clay faced a 10-year sentence for conspiracy to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin. When he refused to plead guilty, the government sought a mandatory sentencing enhancement based on prior convictions. Clay was convicted after trial and sentenced to life in prison.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/12/05/us-forced-guilty-pleas-drug-cases

 

[greengummybear]

this is especially true in federal court. the conviction rate is 97%. i am confident the federal court system isn't almost 100% accurate in their accusations. in theory you are innocent until proven guilty. this doesn't matter because innocent or guilty you will probably get convicted in the United States federal courts. if you actually defend your innocence then you receive a much stricter punishment after they convict you. people plead guilty regardless of innocence or guilt because, statistically speaking, they will be convicted even if they are innocent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate

 

[Sporehead]

Sick bastards. Way to make it look like we need the drug war.

 

[treezy z]

^pill_billy you're fucking retarded posting that shit with an open case.

edit: you're not retarded, i like some of your posts, but posting that was retarded.

 

[cj]

this is especially true in federal court. the conviction rate is 97%. i am confident the federal court system isn't almost 100% accurate in their accusations. in theory you are innocent until proven guilty. this doesn't matter because innocent or guilty you will probably get convicted in the United States federal courts. if you actually defend your innocence then you receive a much stricter punishment after they convict you. people plead guilty regardless of innocence or guilt because, statistically speaking, they will be convicted even if they are innocent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate

Not to mention that an extremely high percentage of those defendants are using court appointed attorneys of often questionable competence. Or even if they are competent in the professional sense they are often overburdened and unable to devote the appropriate time to each case. I know from an old poster on bluelight kalash that the average retainer fee for an attorney in federal court can reach up 100 grand. The whole system is fucked. There is no way 97 percent of the people charged with federal crimes are actually guilty.

 

[cousinskeeter]

I got popped with cocaine. Refused a search and complied with everything. In california, police are allowed to take your pulse three times. If its above a certain number they can cuff you, search the car and arrest you (even without finding anything). Oh.... and they don't need to record their BPM measurements, so you guessed it, they can basically use this to arrest people whenever. By the time I was in cuffs, there was 4 cop cars there, with 5 cops all joking and chatting with each other, and one cop dealing with me. That's what my tax dollars go to? I learned later that cops like to find people to arrest around 11PM-1AM because they get to spend the rest of their shift filling out paper work, bullshitting with colleagues, drop you off at county and then clock out.

So of course they cuff me, find the coke. When I go to court, my public defender almost didn't show up. I explained to him the pulse thing was bull shit, what if I was nervous, had anxiety etc? He said sorry man California knows how to play the game, just take the plea (of course it was plea, or fight against 3 years of prison, for 1 gram of blow.)

Took the plea, but the plea was that I had to plead guilty to METH possession. This (the PD informed me) is because the city gets more funding if they hit a certain quota of meth busts. In return, they put me in a program that once finished, dismisses the case and it's no where to be found on my record (unless I wanted to join the air force, CIA etc.) I mean.... I guess that's cool? Zero record, and the city gets some $$$ pretending like I was a meth head.

It's sickening. The car impound lot charged me $500, and shorted my ignition fuse while it was locked up so it wouldn't start when I went to get it. It was just a coincidence that it was a Impound lot / Auto shop 2-in-1 huh? Of course the manager offered to take a look at it and fix it. I told him to fuck off and had AAA come grab my car. My mechanic replaced the fuse for $10 and I was good. My mechanic also found that the impound lot had slit my gas lines with a fine blade/x-acto knife, and if he hadn't caught that, there would have been a chance I exploded while driving one day. Replaced those for $4. Western towing can eat a dick.

Anyways... I realize it's slightly different, just wanted to provide a first hand example of how they have expedited the non-care of "the people." Nothing I wrote is embellished at all. What's also interesting is I went through multiple judges. Some were nice, lenient with multiple diluted urine tests, and some were extremely mean that they threatened me with jail time simply for having 2 weeks left of the course/classes. One of my peers in my "classes" got the same exact charge, spent $25,000 on a lawyer to fight it. After 7 months, he got the same sentence as me, and I only had to pay the car impound fee, and the price of the classes. Most (not all) lawyers are just as bullshit as the system itself, considering they are part of it.

 

[ro4eva]

I got popped with cocaine. Refused a search and complied with everything. In california, police are allowed to take your pulse three times. If its above a certain number they can cuff you, search the car and arrest you (even without finding anything). Oh.... and they don't need to record their BPM measurements, so you guessed it, they can basically use this to arrest people whenever. By the time I was in cuffs, there was 4 cop cars there, with 5 cops all joking and chatting with each other, and one cop dealing with me. That's what my tax dollars go to? I learned later that cops like to find people to arrest around 11PM-1AM because they get to spend the rest of their shift filling out paper work, bullshitting with colleagues, drop you off at county and then clock out.

So of course they cuff me, find the coke. When I go to court, my public defender almost didn't show up. I explained to him the pulse thing was bull shit, what if I was nervous, had anxiety etc? He said sorry man California knows how to play the game, just take the plea (of course it was plea, or fight against 3 years of prison, for 1 gram of blow.)

Took the plea, but the plea was that I had to plead guilty to METH possession. This (the PD informed me) is because the city gets more funding if they hit a certain quota of meth busts. In return, they put me in a program that once finished, dismisses the case and it's no where to be found on my record (unless I wanted to join the air force, CIA etc.) I mean.... I guess that's cool? Zero record, and the city gets some $$$ pretending like I was a meth head.

It's sickening. The car impound lot charged me $500, and shorted my ignition fuse while it was locked up so it wouldn't start when I went to get it. It was just a coincidence that it was a Impound lot / Auto shop 2-in-1 huh? Of course the manager offered to take a look at it and fix it. I told him to fuck off and had AAA come grab my car. My mechanic replaced the fuse for $10 and I was good. My mechanic also found that the impound lot had slit my gas lines with a fine blade/x-acto knife, and if he hadn't caught that, there would have been a chance I exploded while driving one day. Replaced those for $4. Western towing can eat a dick.

Anyways... I realize it's slightly different, just wanted to provide a first hand example of how they have expedited the non-care of "the people." Nothing I wrote is embellished at all. What's also interesting is I went through multiple judges. Some were nice, lenient with multiple diluted urine tests, and some were extremely mean that they threatened me with jail time simply for having 2 weeks left of the course/classes. One of my peers in my "classes" got the same exact charge, spent $25,000 on a lawyer to fight it. After 7 months, he got the same sentence as me, and I only had to pay the car impound fee, and the price of the classes. Most (not all) lawyers are just as bullshit as the system itself, considering they are part of it.

And they consider you to be the danger and a burden to society.

You're right, it is sickening. And if I would have been in your shoes with respect to having my property sabotaged like that, I probably would have done something regrettable (to put it lightly), which makes me wonder if they were trying to provoke you into victimizing someone.

 

['medicine cabinet']

Yup its one big fraternity...prosecutors, defense attorneys judges....its all bs. They all work together to fuck you....

And that's crazy about Cali cops being able to take your pulse..wtf? Do they think they are human lie detectors like deniro in meet the parents lol? That's such a load of crap. My heart rate jumps as soon as I see the flashing lights in my rearview let alone when the cop is aty window...and so that somehow constitutes PC to search? I've never heard anything like that before. Smh.

 

[cousinskeeter]

I apologize in advance, I will definitely responsd to both of you. It will get a bit political once I get the facts of my arrest/court stuff out of the way.

@ro4eva
You're actually correct, I could blatantly tell they were attempting to provoke me at times. And when I say I was polite and compliant to the fullest degree, I'm not lying in the least, jail was the last place I wanted to be. They questioned me for over an hour, at one point pulling out "flash cards" with the most random fucking questions. Everything from "what date was it yesterday" to like who was the 15th president of the United states. I'll explain why they did this in my reply to medicine cabinet.

@medicine cabinet
I kid you not. Only "drug recognition experts" are allowed to do this.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...=7U0m4jyyBlfEB3ebY-0Rxw&bvm=bv.85076809,d.cGU

Guess what? Every police office is also a DRE once they complete academy. That's convenient. And you are correct, I said "Officer, I am extremely nervous right now talking to two police officers at 1AM with flashing lights. That's going to sky rocket my pulse, it would to anyone." To which the response was "yeah but even nervous people wouldn't have a pulse this high." Keep in mind, there was no physical, or digital recording of the measurements, just his finger on my wrist and counting in his brain. Sound shady? It is.

They are then allowed to not only cuff you and search your car, but also arrest you EVEN IF they find nothing illegal in your vehicle or on your body. My friend was pulled over for a broken light. 100% sober, not a single illegal thing in hid car, not an RC, not even an aspirin. Just some candy trash and soda cans. When he refused a search they became angry and did the pulse thing.... and booked him for public intox. Got his blood drawn, spent the night in county, car impounded. The district attorney didnt even file a fucking court case against him after reading the police report. Even the DA knew how fucked that arrest was. But he still missed work, and lost $400 to the impound over a nervous pulse.


As a life-long CA citizen with an attorney in the family (unfortunately not criminal law), california is going to literally implode within a decade. Part of it is because with (random guess) 40% of the LAWS/politics being kind of conservative-based, and 60% liberal-based things become a cluster fuck. The one and only thing that is keeping CA afloat, is silicon valley's state taxes. Environmentalists have prevented any and all development & industry in the state.

Remember when Prop 8 got passed, and banned gay marriage in one of the most liberal states in the US? Well if you look at the polling numbers, the reason it passed was because of the lower socioeconomic black [and some latino] voters, majority of whom are Christian voting for it. And while this is going to sound extremely racist, they support liberal laws like welfare when it benefits them, but gay marriage? Nope goes against our savior christ. Let's just say Prop 8 gave white liberals a mindfuck, so instead of admitting there was an issue, they had the federal government come in and overturn prop 8.... meaning what point is voting, if in the end the ruling class/party/feds can change the outcome. Your votes do not matter, period at least in CA.

But on the bright side, at least they arent NYC police.

(I support gay marriage 100%, this inst about that, this is about the dysfunctional nature of CA.)
& one last thing: in between showing up for my first court date, and walking up to the stand in front the of judge, my public defender had disappeared, leading to an EXTREMELY akward situation. Heres the best part: during the entire session (not just my little bit) the Prosecutor/DA's chosen gal, was TEXTING on her phone during the entire court session. When the judge asked her questions, she would look up from the phone, give a half-assed answer and then keep texting. I'm not joking in the least, I have extensive knowledge on the court system because of my family member, I know what I saw and who it was. This is when I realized that a the 'liberals' dont care about the people, they care about A) numbers and B) votes. Not saying conservatives are any better, the problem is really how much the legal system has devolves since the US gained its independence. If the founding fathers were brought back to life today, I bet ya they'd eventually become domestic terrorists, realizing we need to start from scratch again. There is no turning back from this and that's not just a CA thing. [To the NSA agent reading this, don't trip, I'm not planning on doing anything, it was a quasi-analogy. Personally, I'm going to head to the pub and wait for this to all blow over]

People say Obama isnt a let-down, because he has no real power. Okay fair enough. But during his state of the union address, he could have easily thrown his script over his shoulder and said "listen, I am a puppet. The system is fucked, we need to this, or that or whatever. If I had been caught with cocaine, under the very laws that exist during my presidency, I would have been barred from running for president. All of you listening, conservative or liberal, need to stand up and start taking action. etc etc" He does have power, because the public listens to him, he has inside information. If he sways the public, we could get weed decriminalized federally, or Guantanamo closed within 4 months tops. Because when the public is angry, and congressional seats are at stake, things magically happen. Obviously something's we have to concede are unrealistic, but its the point I am trying to make that's important. Puppets are what the audience sees. If a puppet got a mind of it's own, that is what the audience would see, not the puppeteer.

Sorry about that min-rant. Anways back on topic!

Im curious if anyone has similar anecdotes from other states. Usually my friends in TX say cops there will help walk them home drunk, or let them leave their car on the side of the road and give them a ride home, stuff like that.

Why is it that my cocaine fake-meth plea got me a class which erased the felony from my record.... but crack-cocaine had (has?) a mandatory minimum of a certain number of years? Hmmmmmm...

Anyways... I am still curious about stories from other states and interactions with police. I promise the pulse-rate law would have been shot down in an instant in 40 other states. Let's hear some first hand reports guys!



********************Unrelated to OPs topic, so apologize in advance****************
http://www.thestatesproject.org/state-debt/
http://politicalmaps.org/wp-content/themes/mimbo2.1/images/2012-homepage-map.png

From highest debtor to lowest debtor. Only a few of exceptions (coastal states), do you see a trend there? especially considering blue states have higher tax rates on average? I do. Sorry for being political, but my entire arrest and the next 18 months REALLY got me passionate about the people I thought were looking out for me.
*********************************************
Keeping in mind I support gay marriage, the idea of welfare, public education and much more. But when my state lets rapists and child molesters out of jail 10x faster than someone busted with meth, or stealing a loaf of bread for a 3rd strike..... sometimes not sending them to jail at all.... my blood boils..... especially when we have the biggest economy in the country, but can't find the $20 bill we lost under our Sacramento couch.

 

[TheRapperGoneBad]

this is especially true in federal court. the conviction rate is 97%. i am confident the federal court system isn't almost 100% accurate in their accusations. in theory you are innocent until proven guilty. this doesn't matter because innocent or guilty you will probably get convicted in the United States federal courts. if you actually defend your innocence then you receive a much stricter punishment after they convict you. people plead guilty regardless of innocence or guilt because, statistically speaking, they will be convicted even if they are innocent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate

Sad but true

 

[greengummybear]

i was wrong, 97% is an old conviction rate.

the Department of Justice has links on their site to more current data on conviction rate. after searching an hour all i got was "Page not found" errors. i also couldn't find the current United States federal conviction rate using Google. weird right? eventually I did find the most current federal statistics. in the United States of America federal court system the percentage of defendants receiving verdicts of not guilty is 0.06%

 

[cannabis cowboy]

I live in Louisiana (new orleans) and while on a state level, drugs are not tolerated at all, local DA and Police aren't particularly worried about anything but Heroin. (liberal city, conservative state) I honestly am happy we haven't seen the decline of,rights here like the rest of the country

 

[greengummybear]

huh? i visited that city one time. the cops stole my backpack. my keys, my computer, everything i had of value was in my backpack. they later denied they had done so. New Orleans is way crazy and outside of the French Quarter is dangerous. I haven't been to the suburbs. after hurricane Katrina the national media broadcast lots on the social problems (violence, poverty, corruption, ect.) in New Orleans.

the only thing I know about Louisiana as a state is that they have the highest incarceration rate in this country. the U.S.A. has the highest incarceration rate in the world and Louisiana doubles the national average incarceration rate. Ha, I would not send my worst enemy there.

 

[cannabis cowboy]

huh? i visited that city one time. the cops stole my backpack. my keys, my computer, everything i had of value was in my backpack. they later denied they had done so. New Orleans is way crazy and outside of the French Quarter is dangerous. I haven't been to the suburbs. after hurricane Katrina the national media broadcast lots on the social problems (violence, poverty, corruption, ect.) in New Orleans.

the only thing I know about Louisiana as a state is that they have the highest incarceration rate in this country. the U.S.A. has the highest incarceration rate in the world and Louisiana doubles the national average incarceration rate. Ha, I would not send my worst enemy there.

Well, "I visited once" < I live here and have lived many other places. yes there is a clear violent crime issue, but I feel much safer here th a other major cities I've been to/lived in. (Chicago,LA,NYC, ) the crime issue is pretty well contained (unfortunately in a particular race/class) as far as social liberty goes it's my FAVORITE southernn city. When did you visit? also cops have a reputation for not being so nice to out of towners, just "coming to get twisted and cause trouble"

 

[cannabis cowboy]

also, NONE of the mainstream coverage of Katrina was accurate. I'm so srry you feel that badly about NOLA guess not everyone can handle their shit here.

 

[greengummybear]

the crime issue is pretty well contained

Louisiana produced the highest murder rate in the country over 20 year in a row (double the national average). New Orleans has the highest murder rate of any major city in America. The murder rate in New Orleans is >1000% of the national average murder rate.

my bad experience happened during a time of schizophrenic vagrancy many years ago. i don't know how these terrible things happened in my life. they have happened repeatedly. it could be some guy at a bar named Sam said i should go someplace. i was very easily manipulated and my memory of the majority of my youth is nearly non-existent. the only things i have clear memory of were the very painful events. the situations of unbelievable bad luck and there were lots of those. for example what happened with New Orleans.

various places do bear the scars of the federal governments human rights violations more than others and there is an example.

BE SAFE OP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana#Law_and_government
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_orleans#Government

 

[cannabis cowboy]

hey man, be cool. I said "in a particular class/race" if you're not hhomeless and/or black it's pretty easy.

 

[cannabis cowboy]

and actually, nowadays "krusties" (transients vagrabts) are flocking to NOLA saying it's their favorite.

 

[Jabberwocky]

hey man, be cool. I said "in a particular class/race" if you're not hhomeless and/or black it's pretty easy.

So from your posts you're telling us New Orleans is cool as long as you're not into heroin, are white, not from out of time looking to have some fun (well at least a good deal of the time), and do not venture out of the safe place (safe for white people of a certain class to be more specific as you yourself have mentiond).

Sounds like a pretty fucked up place, even - or especially because - if the vast majority of violent crime and murder happens in poor coloured areas. Might be a progressive town in the South, and I'd agree it is, but that doesn't means it's really all that great of a place. I mean, compared to a having to be gassed to death in a concentration camp, being held captive as a forced labourer sounds pretty fucking good. Only problem is both choices are fucked to begin with.

And this is coming from someone with a lot of family in the area and love this town in particular dearly. Let's just keep things real though guys!