Plea Bargain
Sorry, my "real" world has impinged upon my Arcane World! Some sort of illness has kept me tired, so no reading other's blogs, no posts on my blog, etc, for the past week. :( What a sad, lonely week. :(
The other thing that happened to me: a person close to me accepted a plea bargain for 10 months. Now, if you have watched any crime drama, you know that the cops pound their fists into the table and say "We had him and now he gets this light and easy plea bargain. Is there no justice in this world?!" Yeah, if only TV mirrored reality (which is why I hate courtroom dramas, medical shows, any kind of drama about which I know a little something).
This person shows up for sentencing. Bargains had been made. 10 months was a very long time, especially with a reasonably new baby in his life. But, he was willing to do it to save the court costs and not risk a longer sentence that a trail might produce. The problem is that a plea bargain is not like on TV. A plea of guilty is what it takes to make a Plea Bargain. And the judge is in no way bound to accept it bargain part of it, just the plea. So, he had a guilty plea, which the judge accepted, but then the judge said he didn't think 10 months was really good enough, so he gave him the maximum sentence, 2-5 years. Wow. That really sucks.
The sentencing happened a good 10 hour drive from his home, so he will probably only see his kid a few times before he gets out. And she will be in school by then, probably. Quite a shocking experience for all that are close to him.
So, I give you these words of warning: do not watch TV or movies, except for comedies and farces. Do not accept a Plea Bargain, because it is no different than going to trail and getting sentenced - you are just pleading guilty and that is all. The bargain is just to give you hope that you will get a lighter sentence because you cooperated. Bullshit.
-Edward
3 comments:
Sorry to hear about your friend. It looks as if plea bargaining is there mainly to help the legal system get through its backlog of cases.
Is there any way to appeal the sentence?
Thank you for your concern. He is trying to get someone to contact his lawyer for him, since he has 30 days to appeal the decision. His lawyer was a public defender, ans she isn't returning his phone calls to prison. A family member is going to drive the 10+ hours to track down the lawyer in person, to see if she will file the appeal before it is too late.
Just remember this as a word of warning! Dramas are leading us down a bad path...
Hmmm... public defender. That explains a lot- they're pretty much lawyers for the city/state that are appointed if you can't afford to hire your own attorney, right?
I'm sure they really don't want to spend a lot of time actually defending their clients- they probably council everyone to plea bargain to take the load off themselves.
I hope everything works out.
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