zlacker

The federal government has a ridiculously high conviction rate: 99.96% [1]. They basically only bring the case if they have everything they need to convict.

1. https://www.bhlawfirm.com/blog/2021/05/the-federal-convictio....

>>grumpl+(OP)
What portion of those convictions are plea bargains?

This article says 97%: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/prisons-are-packed-bec...

Why are people so eager to confess their guilt instead of challenging the government to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of a unanimous jury?

The answer is simple and stark: They’re being coerced.

>>tnorth+V1
This is a pretty silly argument. I'm not opining on whether or not prosecutions are coercive; I'm certain they are. But a lower conviction rate would be a bad thing: it would mean the DOJ was bringing more cases they weren't certain they would win, and even exoneration comes with immense costs to the accused.

>>tptace+64
I wasn't replying to a claim that a high conviction rate is a good thing (or better than a lower one).

I was replying to a claim that a high conviction rate somehow suggests we should dispense with the idea that, as a society, we should not presume guilt.

grumple, who I replied to, seemed to me to be suggesting that because the federal government has a high conviction rate, we should assume the accused are guilty.

I'm suggesting that because there is compelling evidence that many guilty verdicts are obtained through coercion, we should not make that assumption.

>>tnorth+R5
Nobody is suggesting we presume guilt. The suggestion is that we're not required to defer opinions about guilt until after a jury trial, which is sensible.

>>grumpl+(OP)
Even your local circuit court probably has a 95%+ conviction rate. If you're innocent of a charge that carries 20 years and your attorney says you have 50/50 shot at trial of winning, or you can plea guilty and take probation what do you do?

Most people take it, and now they have a record. Any future fuck ups (guilty or not) and you're looking at real jail time.

>>tptace+64
The argument around plea bargains is pretty simple. You have someone over a barrel: "Take the deal and go to prison for two or five years, or take a risk on a trial where you'll be put away for life. And btw, our conviction rate is 99.96%."

You'd be crazy not to take the deal, even if you're innocent. Thus, the conviction rate doesn't actually tell us much about how strong the federal cases actually are.

>>sdento+9a
That's not the structure of most plea bargains ("2 years vs. life") but more importantly, you don't have enough information in that hypothetical to determine how fair the system is, because you're not accounting for how liberally federal prosecutors bring cases. If they tend only to bring cases when they have overwhelming evidence --- which is the rap on federal prosecutors (not so much state) --- then you get the same outcome simply by dint of most people in plea negotiations being guilty. A good reason not to take a case to trial is your knowledge that you'll be destroyed at trial.

>>tptace+0d
>A good reason not to take a case to trial is your knowledge that you'll be destroyed at trial.

Another good reason not to take a case to trial is potentially spending years in pre-trial detention, destroying your life -- losing your house, your kids, your job and anything else that requires your presence outside of a detention facility.

Which is why so many cases end up as plea bargains -- get sentenced to "time served" for a lesser offense and then try to pick up the pieces of your shattered life, or fight (assuming you have the money/resources to do so) and potentially never get the chance to pick up those pieces.

So yes, the system is quite coercive.

Let's say for the sake of argument that the DoJ (or state prosecutors) determine (by whatever means) that tptacek has committed criminal acts.

You are arrested, arraigned and bail is either denied or set high enough that you can't afford to pay.

How long could you sit in jail before you lose your job, your house, possibly your spouse and your kids and anything else important to you?

It could be years before a trial. And given that most folks can't afford an unexpected $500 expense, sitting in jail waiting to be tried isn't all that unusual.

Given those circumstances, how long could you sit in jail awaiting trial before your life is a complete shambles? Given the make up of folks here on HN, I'd expect that you may well be able to last longer than most.

High bail and pre-trial detention are absolutely used as cudgels that attempt to force even the innocent to accept plea agreements. Especially when indictments tend to include a lot of overcharging -- another cudgel to force a plea agreement.

Which is why I don't believe that plea agreements should be used at all. But that's a much larger discussion and beyond the scope of this comment.

>>tptace+0d
'In 2011, Swartz was arrested by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) police on state breaking-and-entering charges, after connecting a computer to the MIT network in an unmarked and unlocked closet, and setting it to download academic journal articles systematically from JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT.[13][14] Federal prosecutors, led by Carmen Ortiz, later charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,[15] carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release.[16] Swartz declined a plea bargain under which he would have served six months in federal prison.[17] Two days after the prosecution rejected a counter-offer by Swartz, he was found dead by suicide in his Brooklyn apartment.[18][19] In 2013, Swartz was inducted posthumously into the Internet Hall of Fame.[20]'

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

>>sdento+X81
Yeah, Swartz's liability has been wildly misreported. He faced nothing resembling 35 years, as the prosecutors themselves acknowledged during the dispute. His own lawyer believed he was unlikely to face custodial time even if convicted given the guidelines for the charges. This has been discussed ad nauseam on HN and I'll spare you a repeat of it; the search bar will avail.

>>sdento+9a
> five years..or life. You'd be crazy not to take the deal, even if you're innocent.

To boot, mounting a good defence against the state doesn't cheap. Competent defence attorneys charge quite some money.

In this instance however, it's safe to assume the accused can afford a good legal team/firm.

>>tptace+1g1
But that's exactly the coercion, laid plain. It /doesn't matter/ that the prosecutors don't believe they'll get the full sentence. They want to paint as dire a picture as possible to get the defendant to take the plea.

>>sdento+Kv4
No, I don't think you're following what I'm saying. The prosecutors were explicit about the sentence they were actually seeking, and that sentence was itself far outside what the guidelines suggest he would have gotten. The DOJ did not in fact threaten Swartz with 35 years in prison.