Been listening to a bunch of true crime podcasts lately. More often than not, the person accused of a horrific crime, is offered some sort of reduced sentence, in exchange for a guilty plea. I know part of the reason is to spare the victim(s) and their families the trauma of going through a trial. It just seems pointless when they have so much evidence to convict them and give them a harsher sentence, especially considering how many people rarely serve the full sentence. I get it but I also don’t.
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Another important factor that other commenters have touched on but not dived into: usually, in the US at least, the decision at a trial is made by a jury. To pick a jury, the court gets a few dozen to maybe a hundred people in a room, and then the court and attorneys get rid of the ones who they don’t think can be fair or follow the law. The selection process is no good if they answer the questions falsely – this happens. You end up with (usually) 12 people to be the jury.
It is very, very hard to predict what 12 people in a room are going to do. I have seen juries ignore incontrovertible evidence. I have seen them convict on just about nothing. Juries frequently reach contradictory decisions, for instance saying a person is guilty of X but not guilty of Y, when it’s impossible to do X without doing Y. And if they make a wrong decision in a criminal trial, it is usually impossible to overturn, or even figure out why they made the decision they did.
And worst of all is when they deliberate for hours and days and can’t come to a decision. You’ve put victims and witnesses and a defendant through a trial, maybe a super emotional one, maybe asking a mother to tell the jury the last thing her son said to her on the phone before he was murdered, or subjecting a sexual assault victim to cross-examination about whether she made the whole thing up, or presenting a meticulous case that could put the defendant in jail for life when he has in fact been falsely accused… and then after days of waiting the jury can’t decide and you’re back to square one. And, if there’s a false acquittal in a violent crime or assault case – which is the side we want to err on – the victim will have to live the rest of their lives with the fact that 12 people listened to their story and didn’t believe them. The murderer or rapist will be able to say, for the rest of their lives, that they were falsely accused. It happens, even in very strong cases.
Trial can be traumatizing. At the end of the day, a good prosecutor will explain this to a victim. And, in all but the rarest of circumstances, a good prosecutor will give the victim a choice not to go to trial, and will seek a plea when that victim doesn’t want to relive the worst day of their life in front of 12 strangers and a bunch of journalists, even if the case is extremely strong.
Not saying that’s the reason behind anywhere close to the majority of plea bargains – but it’s a not-uncommon factor.
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