U.S. - Is there a ‘trial penalty’ for drug defendants who refuse plea deals?

[23536]

A close female friend of mine's boyfriend is being held in feds on a weed trafficking charge.

This type of situation has gotten me into so much trouble. Friend in jail, friend's girlfriend hanging around me.

 

[S.J.B.]

Damn though. In canada you only get like a year for traffick? Shit considering the money is just as good, if you're actually pursuing this shit as a 'career' or long term thing, should really try to live up there huh?

Yeah, that's a huge part of why Canada is such a hub for importation and production.

 

[tweex]

This shouldn't be news at all. There is a trial penalty for all cases. It is the entire idea of plea-bargaining from a game theory point of view, otherwise every single defendant would be better off requesting a trial regardless of guilt, on the chance of being "wrongfully" acquitted.

 

[23536]

from a game theory point of view

What do you mean?

 

[RedRum OG]

The amount of flaws this dire, horrible, and unfair when it comes to our justice system and drugs are countless, it is a horrible, draconian system, when it comes to drugs, let alone in general.

 

[citizenuzi]

This type of situation has gotten me into so much trouble. Friend in jail, friend's girlfriend hanging around me.

I don't know dude at all. She doesn't hang with me either, as she moved states away.

 

[tweex]

What do you mean?

I'll just pull a random example out of my ass.

John Doe gets arrested and charged for derpery (carrying a 3-5 year sentence), but the evidence is shaky.

The D.A. offers him a plea to the lesser charge of herpery for a 6 month sentence in the hopes of just getting rid of the case.

If John Doe goes to trial, he faces a 50% chance of getting convicted, and receives an average 4 year sentence.

So if you multiply all those probabilities out, John doe should take the 6 month plea bargain, or otherwise he'll spend an average of two years in prison from going to trial (50% chance of an average of 4 years, 50% chance of 0).

This isn't far off of how real cases go, trials are almost 50/50 acquittal/conviction, so DAs tend to offer sentences somewhat less than half of what would likely be given at trial.

If the DA thinks the case has different odds, they'll adjust the plea bargain accordingly based on how strong the case is. The entire idea is avoiding the expense of a trial (and possible appeals), and of extra money spent keeping people locked up, while at the same time having an amazingly high conviction rate and appearing to be "keeping the community safe".

If you add prisons that make a profit on keeping people locked up into that, it gets far more fucked up.

Edit: My solution to it? Remove 90+% of the (amazingly silly) laws from the books that have clogged up the judicial system in the last 100 years, especially remove every "crime against society" or "public well being". Don't offer serious violent felony offenders plea bargains at all, make them all go through trials and be found guilty or acquitted, too many innocent people take plea bargains in these cases and too many guilty ones get out early. Send the guilty ones to regular state run prisons more focused on rehabilitation, with comprehensive mental health services. Completely do away with fines exceeding restitution, and civil asset forfeiture processes. Keep plea bargains in place for non-violent and minor violent offenders and sentence them only to community service, probation or for-profit halfway houses that make money off of placing them in jobs with on the job training. Automatically expunge all misdemeanor records 2 years after completion of sentence, and all felony and mental health records after 5.

I think we'd notice the "crime problem" suddenly wasn't much of a problem after all.

Also, require every new federal law to be heard in front of the supreme court before it can be enacted.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

The justice system nowadays is, among other things, a moneymaking enterprise, on which a lot of people depend for their livelihoods. Plea bargaining is what all shrewd businessmen know how to do: it's haggling.

Plea bargains remind me in many ways of supermarkets' "shoppers club discounts", whereby if (and ONLY if) you sign up for a card you swipe when you check out, you get the sale prices of the on-sale items you bought. What they don't tell you is that what they call the sale price is the real full price, and the other one is an inflated price they charge as a penalty to shoppers who won't fork over their contact information for purchase-tracking and spamming purposes.

The plea bargain penalty is the real "fair" punishment, or at least much closer to it. The "on the books" punishment is what judges and prosecutors (and probably jurors) hand to people who have the nerve to take as much as they can from the system and go down kicking and screaming. When you're selling a product and your buyer is haggling with you, your initial offer will be a dream price, the maximum you could possibly charge a customer without people balking. Usually you'll move down from there, but if your customer is not savvy enough to realize it's time to haggle, or just isn't very good at playing this game, it will be your final offer to him.

One of the biggest things that makes drug charges popular with the government at all levels is that most of them involve extremely clear-cut tangible evidence, of the res ipso loquitur (the thing speaks for itself) variety. The law says that possession of marijuana in this jurisdiction is illegal, and carries a penalty of $500. Case law precedents and Noah Webster say that wearing a piece of clothing with an item in its pocket falls under the definition of "possession" of that item. We caught you with marijuana in your coat pocket in this jurisdiction. Therefore, you owe the government of this jurisdiction a fine of $500. Fair or not, you've got to admit that that's pretty legally airtight. Seriously, what is there to go to trial to debate? There is no room for any angle that you were wearing someone else's coat and had no idea there was weed in it, or any other rabbit-in-a-hat from any defense lawyer claiming you had no idea you were breaking a law or had no intent to. Compare that with the many shades of gray and many possible interpretations of the circumstances surrounding, say, a person's wrongful death. You snub the plea bargain and insist on going to trial, when the prosecution has the lab-tested baggie of contraband they found on you, and possibly a video of them fishing it out of your coat pocket, and in their eyes, you're just being a passive aggressive nuisance who deserves the book thrown at him.