as a criminal lawyer i would say philosophically, yes anything that carries jail time should grant the defendant a right to a trial by jury. But economically, no, the system doesn't have time or money for that.

In my state jury weeks have had to be cancelled more often over the last couple years due to declining funds. And my state is a Preliminary Hearing state and not a Grand Jury state, which means we have a less need for jurors in general already.

I'm not sure it wouldn't be a positive that the state needs to be more selective in which cases it choses to try.

Also a bit of a fan of eliminating plea bargaining.

Tend to agree. I'm sure one of the attorneys in residence could explain why this is a terrible idea, but the status quo of prosecutors being able to bring a myriad of charges to coerce plea bargains (due to the huge down side of taking the case to trial and losing) is ridic. Doubly so when you account for how poor some public defender's offices are.

As an example: In Pennsylvania setting up a drug deal via text message or email is a felony. Not the deal itself, just the exchange of messages.Our local police department has a drug task force and pretty much any time they do a raid the people they bust invariably end up catching this charge. When they get sentenced after a plea bargain it is almost always one of the ones which is dropped.

over charging is indeed a huge issue. Working at a DA's office in a red state exposed me to how little time and effort is put into the charging stage. Our office kept all the intake(police charges) in a conference room and attorney's would be completing their charging assignments during lunch or breaks while bull****ting with others doing the same. The amount of incorrect or overcharged intake was far to large due to the lack of effort in the intake stage. It didn't seem to register to people that this could potentially screw up someone's life because you could just dismiss it later... The newer/more liberal attorneys were admonished for charging/pleading light and most of them including myself were pushed out of the office.


in your example for instance another couple add-on charges would be use of telecommunication device in criminal activity, use of surveillance equipment in criminal enterprise (if there was any type of home security), and acquiring drug proceeds if the charged individual had ANY amount of cash on them.

I've known bookies that have been charged with possession of criminal tools. Those tools have been things like pens, phones, paper, schedules, rubber bands and envelopes. Absolutely insane.

Overcharging is done for for padding $tats in addition to coercing plea bargains.

When I was set up by the cops or whatever I got charged with 7 or 8 misdemeanors, all but 1 of them were even remotely reasonable. Ultimately before we went to trial (when it was clear I would win) and the DA was willing to drop everything they said they would only drop so long as I plead to something because it counts as a "win" for the DA on some important metric. So it went from 8 misdemeanors to 1 traffic violation and everyone was happy

you gave in pretty easily then...

I realize I might feel differently if there was even a 2% chance of the trial ending poorly for me, but I'm leaning towards telling that DA to smd...

I woulda had my phone recording voices in my pocket and played that for the jury.

I mean a traffic violation is nothing and going to trial costs $$$, it's not like I was using a public defender. I don't feel like I got a raw deal or anything but yeah it would've been nice to tell them to **** off I suppose lol

Also I'm easily unlikeable so didn't want to mess with a jury lol

Lol, nice to see some self-awareness.

The whole problem with the system is precisely that practically every defendant is better off taking the plea, completely regardless of guilt or innocence. Public defenders wind up advising that without ever even getting a chance to see the evidence--because that would take up the prosecutors' time and they'll spite-increase the offer or just wait forever leaving the defendant to twist in the wind, possibly while they're incarcerated unable to make bail. It's a joke leading to 97-98% of cases ending in a plea.

I don't blame you, disko, at all for looking out for our own self-interest but the idea that the DA needs to book a "win" in a fraudulent, trumped-up case as obviously corrupt as you state is clearly insane.

Preaching to the converted, I'm sure, and I know you've said you volunteer some probono help for people. Just, dispiriting.

Preaching to the choir in large part here but for those of you who still somehow don't get it:

White privilege is people posting a video of the nurse in Utah and being absolutely outraged (as they should be and the cop should be fired/charged as possible) when they didn't post any outrage over Walter Scott, Tamir Rice, and Philando Castile - all of whom were literally murdered on camera by police officers. I've seen this happening a ton today. That is all.

Yep, even the usual die-hard bootlicker crew is condemning this one. I'm sure for reasons that have nothing to do with the color of the nurse's skin.

Listened to some of the NYT interview with Jeff Flake, my first time listening to more than a soundbite from him. Seems like a totally reasonable dude, wish the rest of the GOP was like that

He votes for all their bull****, **** him

right. these guys are interviewed all the time on npr and they sound reasonable, sympathetic, intelligent, and helpful. but if you actually listent to their words and break down the meaning, they are clearly evasive and evil.

Ben Sasse is the king of that. Anyone that votes to deny 20 million people health insurance to fund a tax cut for billionaires is an irredeemable piece of ****. I don't care how nice they look in a suit or what bull**** they spew to Kai Ryssdahl.

this verrit site that hillary just tweeted out is hilarious

DACA is no more

Life begins at conception and ends at birth. Christian values!!!!

Huh/ Are they killing these people?

And no one is shocked that losing all has no idea what "Christian values" means.

They all sound reasonable next to their party's leader

Literally the end of the war due to nuclear war, this was definitely the white walkers reveal that the writers were building up to.

Loving the false equivalence bull**** hitting every conservative twitter account in some fashion or other, today...

"So if a thief goes to prison we should let the child keep what his parents stole?"

It's unfortunate that we're hoping to deport approximately 800,000 Americans who are demonstrably better, smarter, harder working and more valuable than any Trump voter in the country.

Trump just killing it lately imo