I've been doing a lot of research about our criminal justice system after being thrown into it. I was taught that our rights are things we should all be proud of, but what's concerning to me is it seems nearly impossible to actually exercise those rights.
The entire system is built around inflated charges and plea bargains. I've seen so many people charged with ridiculous things that are later dropped to misdemeanor charges months to even years after. Things like attempted murder to a single count of stalking or trespassing, and they do this explicitly to keep a person incarcerated. What's worse is they avoid trial at all costs to get you to take their plea so they gain yet another "win".
Many attorneys have even told me that prosecutors frequently ruin people's lives over the most mundane circumstances inflated to look like serious charges. This is very scary to me, especially given that prosecutors have absolute immunity under the law to charge you with whatever they want and not what charges reasonably match the evidence.
To me, it just seems that our rights have turned into footer notes to a system that seeks to outright punish us for using our rights.
Has anyone else been involved in the justice system or have any opinions on this? https://c.org/YVgj7cRKNS
Posted by TheBarnesEffect
5 Comments
A lot of this is accomplished by “Stacking charges”.
Ok look, we’re gonna charge you with:
* Felony possession of a standard capacity magazine, because while it say’s 10 rounds we could *squeeze* in 11
* Felony possession of an “assault weapon” because while you used locktite to make the thread protector “permanent”, we require it be welded
* DUI, because while we can’t actually test for pot, we used a very arbitrary field sobriety test and our officer super-duper promises you failed
* Misdemeanor Endangerment of a minor, because your child was in the car with said illegal weapons
* Misdemeanor drug possession, because you have over the limit of Marijuana, since it was raining and we left your bag to get soaked with water before we weighed it
* Misdemeanor resisting arrest, because the officer said you did
* and about a half dozen traffic citations because when we impounded your car we went over ****EVERYTHING*** wrong with it
If you try and fight us on it, we will recommend maximum sentencing and you’re looking at 135 years if you lose. You’ll never see your daughter grow up or be in her life. Even if you win it’ll cost you tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands in lawyer bills and bankrupt you.
Or… *OR*….
You plead guilty to the felony assault weapon charge. We drop all the other charges. We let you do 3 months in medium sec, 3 months in minimum sec, 6 months probation for good behavior. How does that sound?
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Can you blame people for taking the plea deal? “Justice” my ass. It’s coercion. They stack charges just so they can intimidate people into pleading guilty. They *KNOW* most the charges, sometimes all, are bogus. But they don’t care.
I don’t know if it would be a good idea to remove the plea bargain system entirely. If we just got rid of say, 90% of our laws and 100% of the mala prohibita ones, it would all work itself out.
If a prosecutor threatened to punch a defendant in the face if they didn’t testify against themselves, everyone would see that as an illegitimate method to produce a confession. And yet, the prosecutor can threaten a jury trial and that is by many, many times a greater harm than a punch to the face. That’s how bad it is.
>prosecutors have absolute immunity under the law to charge you with whatever they want and not what charges reasonably match the evidence
That’s not really true. Depending on the state, the charges have to go through a grand jury or a probable cause hearing before a judge. Probable cause is a low standard, but it’s higher than “the prosecutor can make up any charge they want”
Many opinions