|
blarzgh posted:
How did you bill this time?
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 22:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 05:56 |
|
|
Irrc criminal defense attorneys charge 10k-20k (UPFRONT) not including expenses so that is a big reason to plea hahah That was years ago so who knows now.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 22:23
|
|
|
blarzgh posted:"Is plea bargaining a net positive or net negative for criminal justice?' In the US, this is probably one of the stronger arguments for plea deals. If you use them to avoid guilty people going into your hosed up prison system, it's a handy band-aid to try what we would consider rehabilitative programs. For us, that's baked into our criminal care system and most of our programs require a criminal conviction as a matter of ensuring against wrongful convictions. Of course, turns out we wrongfully convict a lot more than we thought... Oopsie. We probably need to look more at that before we toss any more stones around.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 22:23
|
|
|
Gotta say, this part:Nice piece of fish posted:The prosecutor has an ethical duty to ensure that the criminal case is as well-evidenced as it can be. The prosecutor makes a determination on whether to proceed to trial, if the matter can be settled with a fine and generally what statute to subsume the crime under, or if the charges will be dropped. Charges are frequently dropped when the evidence is shaky. The prosecutor has a duty to only pursue the cases he is professionally and ethically convinced are worthy of trial. This is mostly why a huge number of cases end up being dropped, or de-penalized through a prosecutor's waiver. The prosecution is supposed to consider this and take this responsibility seriously, and most do. Is functionally no different from our system. This part, however: Nice piece of fish posted:- At no point will the public defender be involved in any of the pre trial determination. seriously offends my Americanized notions of due process. The State bars the defendant and their counsel from participating in the process in determining your pre-trial fate, and punishes you with a conviction for pleading "not guilty"??? The confession thing is similar here with leniency, but it seems like a harsh alternative to a plea bargain. "Just confess to what we accused you of - NO TAKE BACKSIES."
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 22:26
|
|
|
Nice piece of fish posted:Then the prosecutor gets all his ducks in a row and sends the case to the court. The criminal defendant appears before a judge and two lay judges, and is asked by the court if they plead guilty. The answer can be yes, no and maybe. The latter is most common. The defender is not allowed to instruct the defendant in what to say. It's usually fairly obvious if they have, which is a guaranteed conviction. Regardless of the plea (yea, nay, may?), unless the evidence reaches a certain criminal procedure standard of "loving duh, guilty!" the court reviews the evidence and holds a full trial to make sure it makes the right decision. The judge is in complete charge of this process. what on earth does this mean?
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 22:30
|
|
|
Also you could be in jail pending a trial whereas with a plea you can be out. Another reason to choose a plea.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 22:32
|
|
|
Arcturas posted:- Most prosecutors don't charge cases where there is "weak evidence." They have way too many cases sitting in the screening pile with good evidence to waste their time on cases with weak evidence. Could they charge those, or over-charge in the interests of getting a plea deal? Sure. But what's the incentive? In the analogy with the mugger, the mugger gets your wallet. What does the prosecutor get out of it? They can just dismiss the case or tell the cop to get better evidence. Sometimes they have numbers they're expected to hit, but the on-the-ground reality is that they can almost always hit those targets by resolving other cases instead of picking up lovely cases. (Disclaimer about this varying drastically by jurisdiction and state.) These two feel feel contradictory. The prosecutor's office has too many cases sitting around to waste their time on weak evidence cases, but without plea bargaining they'd charge all of those cases instead of declining to prosecute?
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 23:08
|
|
|
I'm fascinated by the responses and I hope nobody has felt they were wasting their time. particularly that essay by Arcturas. Availability of plea bargains seems to be way later in the process than I had assumed. Also I hadn't considered that plea bargains could be used as a tool to divert people into social programs. I suppose that if you were going to get rid of plea bargains you'd have to of course make other process changes in order to not throw out babies with bathwater (presuming there's bathwater, which has been challenged here.)
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 23:10
|
|
|
Volmarias posted:These two feel feel contradictory. The prosecutor's office has too many cases sitting around to waste their time on weak evidence cases, but without plea bargaining they'd charge all of those cases instead of declining to prosecute? No, I think my point is that without plea bargaining prosecutors will charge just the same thing they're currently charging. If you think that prosecutors currently charge weak evidence cases to get plea bargain leverage, there's no real reason to think that prosecutors won't charge weak evidence cases on the off chance a jury decides to believe the evidence or hate the defendant and convict regardless of the strength of the evidence. I suppose there's a possibility that charging with really weak evidence will upset the jury by making them feel like you're wasting their time, and then you'll lose credibility and they won't convict on the lesser-included offense they'd otherwise convict on. But that seems a relatively minor factor in the analysis. Another random point not terribly related to plea bargains - sometimes you see charges dropped mid-stream. That can happen for tons of reasons. Sometimes new evidence comes to light. Sometimes a cop forgot they had their body cam on and sends the body cam footage to the prosecutor who reviews it and it changes their assessment of the evidence and case. Sometimes a case gets reassigned (one prosecutor handles screening, the case then gets moved to someone else) who disagrees with their predecessor's assessment of the strengths of the case and would rather focus on a subset of things. Also I completely forgot to slot diversion programs in to the timeline above. I think that conversation is usually sometime between the initial appearance and preliminary hearing stage, but don't quote me on that. Also I forget how long it is between arrest and initial appearance. I think every state has a requirement for that timing, and it tends to be pretty quick. (A few days at most? Dunno, I have no clue.) It's also a possibility that a defendant will get charged but hasn't yet been arrested. The charges can be filed and they'll later get arrested, with their initial appearance happening after that. Oh, and there is speedy trial stuff. There's a federal constitutional right to a speedy trial, and every state and the federal system all have statutes setting out more detailed speedy trial rights. Those start clocks giving you the right to get a jury trial within a certain amount of time. The constitutional right is a weigh-the-factors analysis where, if you complain that you weren't given a speedy trial, a judge will look at the whole pile of facts and factors and decide whether that was okay, and throw the case out if not. (That's rare.) The statutory analyses are almost always specific numbers of days from triggering events. BUT a defendant can almost always waive their speedy trial rights. They typically do, because they and/or their attorneys want more time to review the evidence and get ready for trial. Prosecutors tend to have an advantage in that most of their evidentiary work has already been done by cops and investigators before they file charges, while defense counsel have to review that pile of evidence and come up with a defense strategy. Arcturas fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Feb 6, 2020 |
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 23:20
|
|
|
euphronius posted:Irrc criminal defense attorneys charge 10k-20k (UPFRONT) not including expenses so that is a big reason to plea hahah This paired with the financial situation of most criminal defendants always makes me wonder how so many CD firms survive. Like, do you plan to collect only like 5% of your receivables? For context I have never practiced in CD.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 23:40
|
|
|
You only represent rich people and you get deposits up front (called retainers) before doing any work.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 23:42
|
|
|
Nonexistence posted:This paired with the financial situation of most criminal defendants always makes me wonder how so many CD firms survive. Like, do you plan to collect only like 5% of your receivables? For context I have never practiced in CD. Credit cards
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2020 23:45
|
|
|
Arcturas posted:No, I think my point is that without plea bargaining prosecutors will charge just the same thing they're currently charging. If you think that prosecutors currently charge weak evidence cases to get plea bargain leverage, there's no real reason to think that prosecutors won't charge weak evidence cases on the off chance a jury decides to believe the evidence or hate the defendant and convict regardless of the strength of the evidence. My point is this: Let's say that the prosecutor's office has 100 cases (which aren't immediately dropped for lack of evidence). 50 are slam dunks, 40 are iffy, 10 are unlikely to reach a conviction (emotional arguments, etc) I'm a prosecutor running on a "tough on crime" platform so I want to have as many convictions as possible. I charge all 100 cases, knowing that on average, 45 of the slam dunks will plead out, 30 of the iffy cases will, and 5 of the lost causes will. I have to bring 15 cases of trial, and my workload planning and budget reflects this (insofar as I can stretch it) Now, due to legal changes, you don't get to arrange pleas before trial begins. Defenders will advise clients to plead guilty for sentencing leniency depending on the evidence, but you're on the "nut up or shut up" path for legal options. No overcharging for negotiations, if you're going to charge it you have to see it through. Let's say that 45 of the slam dunks will still plead guilty. You've still got the same workload but now you've still got to take those 5 cases to trial already. Meanwhile, the other 50 defendants are still being threatened by those charges, but you have to decide whether to go for some lesser charges you're likely to convict, or the high charges that are a maybe. So, do you still charge all of those 40 iffy cases, or just a subset? Do you still charge those other 10 "unlikely to to convict" cases at all? What happens to the plead ratio when the worst case of a not guilty conviction changes from 25 years, to 2? Even in the case where you would still have the same conviction rate with lower penalties, you no longer have people going to prison for 25 years on something they maybe did, which seems much more equitable.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 02:18
|
|
|
Volmarias posted:Defenders will advise clients to plead guilty for sentencing leniency depending on the evidence, but you're on the "nut up or shut up" path for legal options. In the hypothetical "don't gently caress with the accused in order to make the court's life easier" this practice would go out the window too. Give some credit for acceptance of guilt, but let them acknowledge it at the end of the trial where the prosecutor made his case.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 02:23
|
|
|
Devor posted:In the hypothetical "don't gently caress with the accused in order to make the court's life easier" this practice would go out the window too. Give some credit for acceptance of guilt, but let them acknowledge it at the end of the trial where the prosecutor made his case. I'm suggesting that the leniency gets factored in from contrition during sentencing
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 02:38
|
|
|
This is a totally different tangent but IMO the defendant's contrition - or rather, the magic ability that judges think they have to see into the minds of defendants and determine their level of contrition, which ample evidence shows is somehow also highly correlated to the darkness of their skin - should have zero bearing on sentencing. I especially don't think "I dared to try to fight these charges against me, but lost" should translate into a harsher sentence.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 02:57
|
|
|
evilweasel posted:what on earth does this mean? It means defending counsel isn't supposed to instruct the defendant in what (lie) to tell the court to get out of consequences. This extends to pleading; the defendant is entitled to knowledge about what the different pleas mean and the proceedings, but counsel should never for instance tell someone who thinks they are innocent to plead guilty or vice versa. Obviously there's a bunch of nuance there, but simply put the defendant should make their own determination on what to plead. Obviously, a lot of crim defence lawyers don't necessarily follow this which leads me to: If the defendant is given a script of smart things to say and attempts to follow it in court, they will gently caress it up and look like a guilty liar and will assuredly be convicted. (Pleading guilty included, that's more akin to an interview and not a yes/no answer)
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 07:49
|
|
|
blarzgh posted:Gotta say, this part: Betcha it is. Yeah, the pre-trial stuff is the investigation, interviews and such, maybe a jail hearing if they are holding you and then you get your lawyer for that. Otherwise you can chat with your lawyer all you want and they will be given the evidence to prepare a defence, but the prosecution will not contact you for a chat about ways to solve this whole thing. You get whatever they determine. There is no bargaining. You'll get convicted if you try and bullshit the court. If you for instance already made a statement where you mostly confess, sitting down and lying on the stand (defendant may decline to take the stand but that's usually stupid) is gonna give the prosecutor a field day ripping you apart. The first thing the court hears in a criminal trial is the defendant's version, and if that doesn't mostly match the later facts hooo boy. It is a somewhat harsh alternative I suppose. It's used as a pressure tool by police all the time and often you don't even qualify anyway. I don't like it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 07:58
|
|
|
Wait, so if during pretial, the DA says, "we're putting you on probation." Do you have the chance to decline and go to trial? Is it basically just the plea bargain process without input from the defense?
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 15:18
|
|
|
blarzgh posted:Wait, so if during pretial, the DA says, "we're putting you on probation." Do you have the chance to decline and go to trial? Depends. If you mean, "can the prosecution unilaterally put you on probation" or suspended sentence or diversionary program or whatever, the answer is no. That requires a conviction. If you mean "can the prosecution tell the defendant that they are requesting probation as a sentence" then yes, they can tell the defendant that. In fact, they have to, as you have the right to know exactly what they are charging you with and why. If you mean "can you decline [the punishment the prosecution can decide without trial]" which is a fine, loss of a right (usually license), or some sort of forfeiture cf. the norwegian code of criminal procedure § 255, cf. § 2 nr. 3, then yes you can decline and demand a trial, even if it's a prosecution's waiver of punishment. You are always guaranteed a right to a trial.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 15:37
|
|
|
It sounds like the crucial thing here is if the prosecution says "we'll have give you probation if you just plead guilty" and you say "no", the prosecution can't go "alright then, see you on trial for distribution of heroin and 10 years of prison then", is that correct?Leperflesh posted:This is a totally different tangent but IMO the defendant's contrition - or rather, the magic ability that judges think they have to see into the minds of defendants and determine their level of contrition, which ample evidence shows is somehow also highly correlated to the darkness of their skin - should have zero bearing on sentencing. Very good points.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 16:00
|
|
|
Nice piece of fish posted:It means defending counsel isn't supposed to instruct the defendant in what (lie) to tell the court to get out of consequences. This extends to pleading; the defendant is entitled to knowledge about what the different pleas mean and the proceedings, but counsel should never for instance tell someone who thinks they are innocent to plead guilty or vice versa. Obviously there's a bunch of nuance there, but simply put the defendant should make their own determination on what to plead. oh gotcha, you made it sound like the judges can go "hmm it sounds like you talked to your lawyer too much, you're automatically convicted, next case" which seemed a little bit unfair
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 16:01
|
|
|
Volmarias posted:It sounds like the crucial thing here is if the prosecution says "we'll have give you probation if you just plead guilty" and you say "no", the prosecution can't go "alright then, see you on trial for distribution of heroin and 10 years of prison then", is that correct? The prosecution is super duper never allowed to pressure the defendant to enter a guilty plea and if they promised that in exchange for a lesser sentence it is prosecutorial misconduct and would itself be a crime, there would need to be an internal police investigation and the career of that prosecutor would be dead along most of his trials. The prosecutor only rarely has contact with the defendant before trial though, so that would have to be done through defending counsel who (if it were me) would get that poo poo in writing or record a phone call and immediately phone the judge and internal affairs. So yes, the only way the prosecution can tell you what they are planning on charging is through the charging document and if they change it up for trial (unless they can document a great reason) they would super gently caress up their case. evilweasel posted:oh gotcha, you made it sound like the judges can go "hmm it sounds like you talked to your lawyer too much, you're automatically convicted, next case" which seemed a little bit unfair Oh yeah no, not what I meant, sorry about that. It's just that, in my opinion, there's no way to get a criminal defendant to sound unrehearsed unless they genuinely are. Maybe the rules could be stretched a bit (and sometimes are by the more unsavoury types of crim defence, mostly Dallas lawyers from Oslo) when it comes to just how far you can go in leaning on the defendant, but to my mind a proper interpretation of the ethics rules don't allow for that poo poo. And if you are any kind of crim law expert, you don't loving need to as you handle the case that is before you and don't try to manufacture your own.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 16:14
|
|
|
It seems kind of bad that a defense attorney can't coach their defendant in order to help them achieve the best outcome in their case.\.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 18:41
|
|
|
Nice piece of fish posted:The prosecution is super duper never allowed to pressure the defendant to enter a guilty plea and if they promised that in exchange for a lesser sentence it is prosecutorial misconduct and would itself be a crime, there would need to be an internal police investigation and the career of that prosecutor would be dead along most of his trials. The prosecutor only rarely has contact with the defendant before trial though, so that would have to be done through defending counsel who (if it were me) would get that poo poo in writing or record a phone call and immediately phone the judge and internal affairs. I think what you're describing is just that lawyers aren't allowed to encourage or instruct defendants to purjure themselves? The US has that as well.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 19:33
|
|
|
Prepare witness good coach witness bad
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 19:35
|
|
|
I don't remember where but I once saw a thing that showed that a person who is very nervous about the answers they're giving is indistinguishable from a person who is lying with the answers they're giving; and being on the stand, especially with their freedom on the line, makes most people very nervous. I don't know how you'd tell the difference between a person who is saying things their attorney told them they should say (and maybe stumbling over them) vs. a person who is just terrified because if they gently caress up their answers they're going to jail.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 20:01
|
|
|
BonerGhost posted:I think what you're describing is just that lawyers aren't allowed to encourage or instruct defendants to purjure themselves? The US has that as well. Well yeah, there's that. But there is plenty of nuance between that and basically not advising the client at all. Also, in Norway a defendant cannot perjure himself. Nonexistence posted:Prepare witness good coach witness bad Exactly. To my mind, this is actually fairly difficult and it's hard to know exactly where the line is between too little and too much. We could probably argue this one for pages. Leperflesh posted:I don't know how you'd tell the difference between a person who is saying things their attorney told them they should say (and maybe stumbling over them) vs. a person who is just terrified because if they gently caress up their answers they're going to jail. Well, for one, the first category sometimes goes "but this is what my attorney told me to say" which is just, you know, top notch. Then sometimes they - instead of describing what they felt and thought and knew at the time - start saying things that "but, I didn't have any of that special intent your honor" or "I was in uh in manifest fear for my life my lord". If a defendant is nervous, they are usually instructed to say so beforehand and they aren't alone, defending counsel is there to ask pointed and in fact completely leading questions to help guide them through their story. Yeah, we don't have objections, leading the witness or whatever that movie bullshit the US has, we just have the facts and we are encouraged to ask open-ended questions as much as possible, emphasizing the court's role in getting the whole story as free-form as possible. The judge conducts the interview as much as they want, by the way.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 20:20
|
|
|
Oh ok, so people who watch too many courtroom dramas and NCIS episodes and consequently think they can speak "legalese" are obviously guilty. I'm OK with that. gently caress those people.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 20:29
|
|
|
Sure. There's also the thing that in more free form questioning, it's easy to get caught on bullshitting or trying some fuckery. There's no formality that will save you from your own stupid mouth.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 20:36
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Oh ok, so people who watch too many courtroom dramas and NCIS episodes and consequently think they can speak "legalese" are obviously guilty. I kind of read that as they know they're guilty, and now they're grasping at straws to try to escape punishment by means of a technicality that they can't properly justify. Nice piece of fish posted:or "I was in uh in manifest fear for my life my lord". I know you're over in europe-land, but it amuses me to imagine someone addressing a judge as, "my lord" in a US court.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 20:43
|
|
|
DaveSauce posted:I kind of read that as they know they're guilty, and now they're grasping at straws to try to escape punishment by means of a technicality that they can't properly justify. Yeah basically imagine this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgloGWshcj0 e: it's extra funny because the witness (Moss, aka Richard Ayoade) is a licensed lawyer. e2: even better, he's also half norwegian, which makes him just awesome. Nice piece of fish fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Feb 7, 2020 |
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 20:54
|
|
|
DaveSauce posted:I know you're over in europe-land, but it amuses me to imagine someone addressing a judge as, "my lord" in a US court. Come plead, m'lord
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 20:55
|
|
|
Nice piece of fish posted:Yeah basically imagine this richard ayoade is fantastic and I've seen all of The IT crowd at least three or four times through so yeup. That guy: clearly coached by his lawyer, GUILTY.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 21:14
|
|
|
I've seen innocent people plead. The people who overcharge are the cops doing the initial arrest. Then the solicitor doesn't want to drop the charge because they're more concerned about their statistics, but gives a good plea (time served, fines waived, etc). Defendant takes the plea because they just want it over with and don't want to go through time and trouble of a trial.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 21:16
|
|
|
Nice piece of fish posted:Sure. There's also the thing that in more free form questioning, it's easy to get caught on bullshitting or trying some fuckery. There's no formality that will save you from your own stupid mouth. How long do your trials last, and what's the pretrial time? I can sort of see that working in America, I guess, if poo poo moved along. But the most basic cases over here take days for the trial itself and pretrial stretches for months for everything, including the most basic one-witness dui cases. The defense is expected to waste a prosecutors time and grind the system to a halt even further if the prosecutor won't give favorable offers. That's the best (or one of the best) tools they have to incentivize good offers.
|
|
#
?
Feb 7, 2020 23:35
|
|
|
Plea bargaining is bullshit, slightly corrupt, and forces people to plea to poo poo they didn't do. However, many, many more people will be hosed without it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 05:15
|
|
|
I really hate pretrial detention and bail conditions a lot more than the plea bargaining process
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 06:46
|
|
|
BigHead posted:How long do your trials last, and what's the pretrial time? I can sort of see that working in America, I guess, if poo poo moved along. But the most basic cases over here take days for the trial itself and pretrial stretches for months for everything, including the most basic one-witness dui cases. The defense is expected to waste a prosecutors time and grind the system to a halt even further if the prosecutor won't give favorable offers. That's the best (or one of the best) tools they have to incentivize good offers. Trials? Varies per type, if it's a type of case where you took a traffic fine or other fine type situation to court, 3 hours give or take. A proper prison time trial maybe a day, adjusted for complexity. A murder trial or super complex trial where there's a serious prison time at stake, maybe five trial days, ten at the most? There are always exceptions for really crazy cases. But they are pretty rare, though, so you have to remember that our system deals with vastly less crime than the US, and murder trials are like national news worthy. For pretrial, the police are obligated to investigate and prosecute without any undue delay. There's a firm speedy trial guarantee, which results in a lot of time off your sentence or even a suspended sentence if the police drag their feet. For a fine/misdemeanor probably less than a month, maybe two. For a proper felony case, I guess up to a year? It depends on how quick the police are, once they send it over to the courts it gets put on the docket within 3 months, sometimes within 1 month but they try to accommodate the defence's time schedule too. For a murder trial, could be a year or more until the investigation is complete, and in those cases the murder suspects are usually held until trial. The trial itself is held within 6 months of indictment, usually. You do NOT want to be accused of murder in Norway. Now, the reason the prosecution won't drag their feet is for one, right to a speedy trial as a human right (ECHR) and because the longer you take, the shorter the sentence will be. If the police let the case drag for two years or more, the court might start to consider straight propbation or a suspended sentence. And then the media has a field day.
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 08:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 05:56 |
|
|
Nice piece of fish posted:You do NOT want to be accused of murder in Norway. Actually this sounds like the best place to be accused of murder. Have you seen your jails?
|
|
#
?
Feb 8, 2020 20:09
|
|