No Pleas Please II

Hello, Folks;

Watching the newspaper and TV reporting of the burgeoning prison population in the country leads me to revisit a subject I wrote about some time ago.

The Federal and State Criminal Justice systems depend on prosecutors conniving with the defense bar to induce 97% of defendants to plead guilty without a trial in order to obtain the most convictions in the shortest time at the least cost. The defense attorney gets paid his large fee for doing the least work. The prosecutor gets more notches on his gun and a better chance to look tough on crime and perhaps become, god forbid, a judge, with the least application of time and resources.

In the end, the defendant gets screwed from both sides, and his rights tossed casually on the dump.

For years I have advocated an easy and effective solution. No one take a plea, at any time, regardless of the threats of the prosecutor and the defense attorney.

In the Federal Criminal Justice system, for the most part the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines govern the sentences; Booker, Gall and Kimbrough decisions by the Supreme Court notwithstanding. For the most part it is the same in most state schemes.

The effect of the No Plea strategy is that the overcrowding of jails is at a crisis point. The system depends on a rapid flow-through of defendants to keep a lid on the problem. If no one takes a plea, even for traffic violations, the local, state, and federal court systems simply will not be able to contend with the results.

There are only so many hours in a day, and days in a week available to hold a trial by jury. At best, a court might be able to do two jury trials a day, 10 per week, 500 per year, on simple traffic cases. For more complicated offenses, probably less than half that number.

If no one takes a plea, the backlog will crush the ability of the system to hold and prosecute this large number of people being swept up by law enforcement. That is a simple mathematical fact, and one which will take effect in mere days. Think about it! The outcome will virtually shut down the ability of the criminal justice system to process the current numbers, and bring about a massive crash of the now oppressive work of the attorney cabals efforts to further enrich themselves at the expense of the population.

Sure, there are bad guys that need to be dealt with, and should be. I am okay with that. The positive and beneficial impact will be that law enforcement will not be able to continue to drag so many people into court on the violations of the hundred of ridiculous and petty offenses dreamed up by the attorneys running the legislative bodies to generate more revenue, and require higher taxes to support the out-of-control criminal justice system.

Just say "no" to the plea bargaining. Enforce the right to jury trials and put America back on course to protecting everyone's rights. It would help a lot of people who need the assistance.

D. Tom