The scourge of plea bargaining is robbing millions of a different, and fundamental, kind of liberty

[Nevilledog]

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Inquest
@_inquest_
The scourge of plea bargaining has long been a key driver of mass incarceration. But the practice also feeds a pipeline to mass disenfranchisement, robbing millions of the right to vote.

Both scourges must end, write @SomilBTrivedi and @JulesTwitted. https://inquest.org/mass-disenfranchisement/…
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inquest.org
Mass Disenfranchisement | Somil Trivedi & Julie Ebenstein | INQUEST
The scourge of plea bargaining is robbing millions of a different, and just as fundamental, kind of liberty.
9:46 AM · Feb 11, 2022

https://inquest.org/mass-disenfranchisement/

In Maricopa County, Arizona, prosecutors explicitly threaten people they charge that if they assert virtually any of their rights during plea bargaining, any subsequent plea offer will become “substantially harsher.” It doesn’t matter if the defendant is claiming innocence or just wants a little more discovery. It doesn’t matter if they are alleging police misconduct. If you speak up, the deal gets worse. Much worse. As the American Civil Liberties Union, where we litigate around these issues, has alleged in its lawsuit challenging the practice, this is an obvious problem for justice. For one, because everyone has a right to fight for their freedom; we can’t have state actors retaliating against people for asserting their rights, or they are no rights at all.

But this is also a problem for democracy. Why? Because many of these coerced pleas — in Arizona and around the nation — result in the loss of the right to vote as well.

So as we enter another election season in the United States, and the country becomes reacquainted with noxious, suppressive tactics like gerrymandering and voter purges, let’s remember that roughly 5.2 million people nationwide will be barred — not dissuaded, barred — from casting a ballot because of a past criminal conviction. And the vast majority of those convictions will be due to plea bargains.

Both incarceration rates and conviction-related disenfranchisement have increased an astounding 500 percent over the last 40 years or so, despite crime rates falling consistently over the same period. Not coincidentally, also around 45 years ago, in a case called Bordenkircher v. Hayes, the Supreme Court wrote prosecutors a virtual blank check to coerce defendants to plead guilty. In so doing, the court admitted that “whatever might be the situation in an ideal world, the fact is that the guilty plea and the often-concomitant plea bargain are important components of this country’s criminal justice system.” In other words, by 1977, plea bargaining was already a system too big to fail. Fast-forward to the present, and about 90 percent of federal convictions and 95 percent of state convictions in the U.S. are obtained via plea. In 2012, the justices put it even more bluntly, when they said that “plea bargaining . . . is not some adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice system.”

In other words, plea bargaining is, mechanically, how we got mass incarceration. And therefore, it is one of the ways we got mass felony disenfranchisement.

*snip*

[AZSkiffyGeek]

1. Pleading guilty is the problem? I'd think it was committing crimes in the first place

[Nevilledog]

2. Then you've never been close to the criminal justice system.

I was a criminal defense attorney for 27 years in Arizona. I'd say 80% of the cases filed are overcharged. Why is that important? The prosecutors have the power, not the judges. By overcharging they can add enhancements which take a judge's discretion away.

This results in people accepting plea agreements to things they actually didn't do because they're not willing to risk mandatory imprisonment when they have been given a plea agreement for probation or a guaranteed lesser prison sentence.

Very little in the criminal justice system has to do with truth or fairness.

And people who share your opinion don't get it until they or someone close to them have to face the criminal justice system. And then nobody cares what you have to say about it cuz you're just a criminal. Right?

[cbabe]

3. Cash bail system. Guilty plea bargain or remain jailed indefinitely waiting for trial. 'Gideon's

Promise’, Jonathan Rapping. Nonfiction.

The criminal justice system vs the Constitution. Public defenders try to restore justice to the courts.

Follow the money. Prisons got bucks. PD offices are starved of resources.