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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsReminder: Federal charges result in guilt 99% of the time
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/11/only-2-of-federal-criminal-defendants-go-to-trial-and-most-who-do-are-found-guilty/
Trials are rare in the federal criminal justice system and acquittals are even rarer.
Trials are rare in the federal criminal justice system, and when they happen, most end in convictions. Nearly 80,000 people were defendants in federal criminal cases in fiscal 2018, but just 2% of them went to trial. The overwhelming majority (90%) pleaded guilty instead, while the remaining 8% had their cases dismissed, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data collected by the federal judiciary.
Most defendants who did go to trial, meanwhile, were found guilty, either by a jury or judge. (Defendants can waive their right to a jury trial if they wish.)
Put another way, only 320 of 79,704 total federal defendants fewer than 1% went to trial and won their cases, at least in the form of an acquittal, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. These statistics include all defendants charged in U.S. district courts with felonies and serious misdemeanors, as well as some defendants charged with petty offenses. They do not include federal defendants whose cases were handled by magistrate judges, or the much broader universe of defendants in state courts. Defendants who enter pleas of no contest are also excluded.
Top level prosecutors like Smith and his team are members of the 100% club. One of the reasons for this is that they pare down the charges they could file to only those that are absolutely certain.
comradebillyboy
(10,119 posts)ProfessorGAC
(64,425 posts)Durham deserves it.
sellitman
(11,596 posts)Teflon Don will not go down easily I fear.
-Snake bit in Connecticut.
DinahMoeHum
(21,737 posts)And Trump is both.
I would absolutely try this case in Washington D.C., said Richard Gregorie, a former federal prosecutor in Miami who noted that Trump has far more support in South Florida than in the nations liberal capital city.
People who operate in D.C. have no idea what its like down here. Prosecuting politicians is hard here, he added. The people are just suspicious of government all over South Florida.
Forget documents, if Trump shot someone on Calle Ocho, a Miami jury would find him not guilty, said David Oscar Markus, a top criminal defense attorney who successfully defended former Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum in his corruption trial May 4.
hippywife
(22,767 posts)I'm not accepting anything from this dubious source. From May 20 of this year:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/20/business/the-messenger-news-startup.html
Executives at The Messenger, a news start-up, had big ambitions in the months leading up to its public debut. They said they would begin with 175 journalists covering entertainment and politics, change journalism for the better and even make its audience fall in love with media again.
But less than a week after it started, tensions are running high.
Journalists have chafed at demands to mass-produce articles based on competitors stories. Senior editors huddled with staff on Thursday to address criticism of the site, which had come from Columbia Journalism Review, Harvards Nieman Lab and The Wrap, a Hollywood trade publication. And a politics editor quit on Friday after a clash with the companys audience chief.
Much of the tension at The Messenger and the critical coverage of the site stems from the companys blitzkrieg approach to digital publishing. The company told The Times earlier this year it is aiming to eventually hit 100 million readers monthly which would make it among the most-read publications in the United States and has hired Neetzan Zimmerman, a well-known digital traffic maven, to reach that aggressive target by publishing dozens of stories a day.
tinrobot
(10,848 posts)If he was indicted there, we'd have a crowd of people complaining about that.
Wednesdays
(17,249 posts)Sunny Hostin, who is a former federal prosecutor, pointed out that federal charges result in a conviction in 99.6% of cases.
I like those odds.
Response to grantcart (Original post)
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TwilightZone
(25,342 posts)90% plead guilty and 2% went to trial. 8% of the cases were dismissed as noted in your excerpt.
Hekate
(90,202 posts)Marius25
(3,213 posts)former9thward
(31,805 posts)Conviction rate of 92.6%
Total cases 71,126
adjudicated
Convicted 92.6%
Guilty plea 90.9%
Court trial 1.7%
Not convicted 7.4%
Dismissed 7.1%
Court trial 0.3%
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs20.pdf