Althouse: "Some may wonder why an innocent man would ever plead guilty. Anyone who knows how the system works in practice..."

May 9, 2020

"Some may wonder why an innocent man would ever plead guilty. Anyone who knows how the system works in practice..."

"... would understand why an innocent man—or a defendant in a close case—might be coerced into pleading guilty. The cruel reality is that if a defendant pleads not guilty and is found guilty, the sentence will be far greater than if he had pled guilty—perhaps even 10 times greater. Moreover, in this case, it is alleged that the government threatened, if Flynn did not plead guilty, to indict his son. These are the kinds of pressures routinely used by prosecutors. Civil libertarians have long been critical of these pressures, but fair-weather civil libertarians refuse to object when these improper tactics are used against Trump's associates. Partisan hypocrisy reigns."

Writes Alan Dershowitz in "Flynn Was Innocent All Along: He Was Pressured to Plead Guilt" (Gatestone Institute).

73 comments:

alanc709 said...: The partisans in the media KNOW that innocent people plead guilty, as the lesser of two evils. They don't care. Everything must support the agenda, regardless of consequence. Ted Stevens didn't plead guilty, but how is this case any different otherwise? Has a single news media outlet mentioned his case in regard to this hysteria?; 5/9/20, 4:41 AM
J. Farmer said...: Having spent 20 years on the periphery of the courts, state attorney's office, public defender's office, private attorney's office, guardian ad litems, case managers, law enforcement officers, foster parents, group homes, forensic hospitals, juvie halls, jails, prisons, detoxes, and psychiatric receiving facilities, there are only two things I know with utter certainty....

Never talk to cops. Always get a lawyer.; 5/9/20, 5:29 AM
rhhardin said...: Narratives sell eyeballs and the media needs narratives. How many courtroom dramas are hugely popular.

When the media business model runs everything, it's the path of least resistance for suppliers of narrative in or out of government.

The narrative here is guilty of anything, nobody cares what. Details are not an interesting story.

The counternarrative being attempted by the right may not have the media legs since the villains are on the traditionally side of narrative good. Nobody disparages Superman for excessive force.; 5/9/20, 5:29 AM
rhhardin said...: It's not really about principles but about narrative force, with feelings being the banner that the right is attempting to march under. They'll lose. The left has bigger and better feelings for the public genre.; 5/9/20, 5:30 AM
Gahrie said...: Plea bargains suck, but our criminal justice system couldn't function without them.; 5/9/20, 5:35 AM
Mike Sylwester said...: When DOJ/FBI decide to remove a Mafia boss from his position, DOJ/FBI identifies and threatens vulnerable relatives and associates of the Mafia boss. Those vulnerable people are threatened with legal charges but are offered leniency if they will snitch on and testify against the Mafia boss.

These anti-Mafia tactics are what were employed by DOJ/FBI -- in particular, by Robert "The FBI Whitewasher" Mueller -- for three years in order to remove Donald Trump from his position of being the elected President of the United States of America.

Mueller and his gang of Trump-hating lawyers were authorized by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein -- while Attorney General Jeff Sessions was recused -- to collect incriminating information to use against Trump associates:

* Information that Michael Flynn had not registered to lobby for Turkey

* Information that George Papadopoulos had not registered to lobby for Israel

* Information that Paul Manafort had not paid taxes on money received from the Ukrainian Government during the years 2020-2014.

None of that information was relevant to the question of whether Trump's campaign staff had colluded with Russia in 2016. However, such information could be used to threaten and pressure those three associates into snitching on and testifying against President Trump.; 5/9/20, 5:36 AM
Diogenes of Sinope said...: Given a choice between our current plea bargain legal system and a 100% every trial goes to a jury system with all the problems that would bring, our system would be far better without any plea bargains.; 5/9/20, 5:38 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: And if Hillary had won, none of this would have come to light. That's the really scary part.; 5/9/20, 5:38 AM
John Borell said...: It’s a trial tax.

I’m not saying most people who plea out are innocent. But without question, some are. And they do so because the penalty for not doing so is draconian.

Flynn didn’t lie to the FBI. He did lie to the court, though, because he had no choice.

The DOJ knows this. The Judge knows this.s

I’m conservative by nature. But this makes me feel like the whole thing should be burned down.; 5/9/20, 5:54 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Anyone who has ever watched TV knows how the system works. Why are they pretending they don't? We know why.
Are they actually fooling anyone? Or are Democrat voters just willing to go along with anything to get their wonderful leaders back in power?
Hillary, Nancy, Chuck, Joe. They need you. What will you do for them? What won't you do?
Would you feed your spouse fish tank cleaner to get Trump? Where do you draw the line, Democrats?; 5/9/20, 5:54 AM
Browndog said...: Enough with the "partisan" bullshit.

Republicans allowed this to happen. You call democrats traitors? They are the enemy. What do you call it when members of you own team opens the gate and allows your enemies to burn the city?

Republicans can rot in hell.; 5/9/20, 5:59 AM
James K said...: I knew Dersh would be all over that one. This Democrats/MSM response is pathetic, but there needs to be harsh consequences for the perpetrators or the big lie will continue, and probably leave some people convinced.; 5/9/20, 6:17 AM
rcocean said...: Plea bargaining allows an element of corruption to the whole process. See: Deshowaitz and the Epstein case.; 5/9/20, 6:35 AM
Dan from Madison said...: J. Farmer at 5:29 speaks the truth. Wise words.; 5/9/20, 6:36 AM
tim maguire said...: Gahrie said...Plea bargains suck, but our criminal justice system couldn't function without them.

The problem is That the rationale behind plea bargains has been turned on its head. Instead of the recommended sentence fitting the crime and the plea bargain being a leniency for cooperation, the plea bargain fits the crime and the recommended sentence is punishment for not cooperating. The plea bargain has become a tool for blackmailing people into giving up their right to a fair trial. If doing away with it means our criminal justice system couldn’t function, then our criminal justice system has already failed as a system of justice.; 5/9/20, 6:38 AM
rcocean said...: The whole idea was to wire tap Trump and grill his subordinates and FIND A CRIME. Russia, Russia, Russia was just the excuse. Incredibly, Trump was clean as a whistle. Imagine if the FBI had run the same scam on Clinton in 1992, or OBama in 2008 (remember his Chicago/crook ties).

If someone has any information source on Rosenstein, I'd love to read it. No one seems interested in this guy, except me. People forget that it wasn't Sessions recusal that killed Trump, it was having Rod Rosenstein as DAG. I've now read a Trump interview, where he states he appointed Chris Wray based on Rod Rosenstein's recommendation. I'm like - WTF!; 5/9/20, 6:40 AM
rcocean said...: Plea bargains work the other way as in the Epstein case. they allow people with a weak DA or a crooked one, to cop to a minor charge and skate.; 5/9/20, 6:41 AM
Meade said...: "Republicans can rot in hell."

Just keep making them face the truth. They'll think it's hell.; 5/9/20, 6:43 AM
Kevin said...: The point was to get all these people to flip on Trump.

The Obama holdovers knew he was guilty.

They just needed someone to cough up the evidence they never had.; 5/9/20, 6:43 AM
Kevin said...: Lifelong Republicans still can’t wait until Trump has to release his tax returns.

On then well all see!; 5/9/20, 6:46 AM
Howard said...: Now that it has happened to it rich white person once rather than thousands of poor black men you people are upset. At least he didn't suffer capital punishment like the latest poor sod in Georgia killed by the off duty obese impotent alcoholic Trumper gun nuts.; 5/9/20, 6:48 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Republicans allowed this to happen.

That is true and Meade is exactly right.
But will Barr make them face the truth?

I doubt anyone involved will have to enter a plea.

Why did this happen in the first place? Why was outsider Trump's election so unacceptable to these swamp creatures? Fear of the exposure of greater crimes. That motivation remains.; 5/9/20, 6:57 AM
wendybar said...: Meade said...
"Republicans can rot in hell."

Just keep making them face the truth. They'll think it's hell.
5/9/20, 6:43 AM

They haven't SEEN hell yet. Tick tock, tick tock.; 5/9/20, 7:01 AM
Kevin said...: Obama doubles down:

WASHINGTON — Former President Barack Obama, talking privately to ex-members of his administration, said Friday that the “rule of law is at risk” in the wake of what he called an unprecedented move by the Justice Department to drop charges against former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn.

...

“The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama said in a web talk with members of the Obama Alumni Association.

“And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”; 5/9/20, 7:02 AM
Diogenes of Sinope said...: Since almost all prosecutors are driven by getting convictions and NOT SEEKING THE TRUTH, plea bargaining with its threats of hugely excessive potential prison sentences, is flat out prosecutorial abuse.; 5/9/20, 7:06 AM
Otto said...: I think there is a deeper issue here and that is: is our justice system based on law, and facts or feelings? And this stems from our national ethos of post modernism ; there is no absolutes -> no such thing as truth. That ethos was started by the 60s liberals and through the years has dominated our culture though university professors and aided and abetted by weak parents. Even worse it has been slowly creeping into our Justice system.
We will see how this all plays out.; 5/9/20, 7:27 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: "Since almost all prosecutors are driven by getting convictions and NOT SEEKING THE TRUTH"

And defense attorneys are not driven by seeking the truth, but by getting their client not convicted. It's an issue on both sides.; 5/9/20, 7:45 AM
Leland said...: For those that practice the profession; has this always been the case or has it become more prevalent as Game Theory has been taught more in Universities?; 5/9/20, 7:49 AM
DavidD said...: Well.

Obama thinks dropping the charges against Flynn is wrong.

Okey dokie.

It’s settled, then.

Might as well just give it up.; 5/9/20, 7:50 AM
hawkeyedjb said...: Howard said...
"Now that it has happened to it rich white person once rather than thousands of poor black men you people are upset."

Howard, who do you think runs the justice systems in almost every large city in America?
Republicans?

Black people have never been anything to Democrats and leftists but a vote-harvest, a means to power. Your projection onto "you people" is both cynical and comical.; 5/9/20, 7:52 AM
bagoh20 said...: In a system that claims it's better to have 10 guilty go free than to convict one innocent, the most common mechanism used produces the exact opposite. What responsibility do law professors have in this system. Where does the method of reasoning and fairness that produces such a clusterfuck come from?; 5/9/20, 8:09 AM
bagoh20 said...: It might be valuable to notice that most of those people we are and will be talking about that lied so blatantly over the last 4 years, most of them have something in common in their background, something that is supposed to create a certain kind of thinking, and a level of perspective, knowledge, and training.; 5/9/20, 8:15 AM
Mark said...: Anyone who knows how the system works in practice..."
"... would understand why an innocent man—or a defendant in a close case—might be coerced into pleading guilty.

Having been there, that's what I've been saying.; 5/9/20, 8:17 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: So... Everybody pleads out? Well then, nobody is in prison for "what they did". Ruminate on that for five to fifteen in a cell and what could possibly be the outcome? What about those released "due to corona"? Do child rapists just roll over one day and say "Today I think I'll skull fuck that little darling, but only once"? How many public defenders have the tenacity of Sydney Powell. Is this the best that can be done?; 5/9/20, 8:23 AM
Lurker21 said...: A lot of the same people who see this as an injustice against Flynn also see what happened in Georgia as an injustice to Ahmaud Arbery. There's a fringe of course, but it's smaller than people who see everything through a polarizing lens think. It's up in the air what people will think after the polarizers get through with the story, but left to themselves people aren't as knee-jerk as partisans like to assume.; 5/9/20, 8:34 AM
Big Mike said...: Obama and others are trying to argue that Flynn did, indeed, lie to the FBI agents. But my understanding is that the original 302s did not support that conclusion, and that the 302s were “creatively” edited by Strzok and others. Alas, despite legal requirements that those documents be preserved in the agents’ handwriting, the FBI claims that the originals have been “lost.”

Barr needs to publicly inform Chris Wray that either the original 302s are on Barr’s desk NLT 9:00 AM Monday, or Wray’s letter of resignation is on that desk. Time to stop the assumption of incompetence and start assuming criminal behavior within the upper reaches of our law enforcement agencies.; 5/9/20, 8:52 AM
William said...: As Howard notes, most black people are innocent and are only in prison because they were coerced into making confessions. See the Central Park Five. That's a sad commentary on the state of our justice system in America. But when the screws are applied to someone like Flynn that's fair because he's white and rich.....I will say this contra Flynn. I would prefer an intelligence officer whose antennae would pick up on something wrong about the FBI interview that he granted.; 5/9/20, 8:53 AM
rhhardin said...: what happened in Georgia as an injustice to Ahmaud Arbery

Derb spots another morality play, another Emmett Till, that comes up every half decade or so.

Radio Derb.

Don't be too quick to jump on this bandwagon.; 5/9/20, 8:57 AM
Big Mike said...: Lurker21 is perfectly correct about Arbery.; 5/9/20, 8:59 AM
James K said...: See the Central Park Five.

No, the Central Park Five are not innocent. As Ann Coulter has tirelessly pointed out, a guy who had nothing to lose took the fall. They may not have actually committed rape, but they participated in the crime. They knew facts about the crime that the police had not made public.; 5/9/20, 9:01 AM
DavidUW said...: Imagine we enacted 2 simple reforms:
Loser pays in civil cases
Prosecutorial misconduct can result in liabilities for the prosecutor.

As for the latter, that's part of my running hypothesis that a truly creative activist conservative legal group would use the Constitutional provision against titles of nobility to apply to all the exceptions and privileges government workers carve out for themselves that us peons who pay for them don't get. After all, what is a title of nobility but a government writ that says you have privileges and rights that the masses don't?

Get crackin' activist conservatives.; 5/9/20, 9:02 AM
Michael K said...: Incredibly, Trump was clean as a whistle. Imagine if the FBI had run the same scam on Clinton in 1992, or OBama in 2008 (remember his Chicago/crook ties).

That really is amazing. Trump is the cleanest guy in DC. Only in America.

Howard ignores two items. One is that black crime is off the charts and two is that all big cities are run by Democrats, usually with the support of gangs.; 5/9/20, 9:08 AM
DavidUW said...: Howard must think that roving gangs of whites and asians are running in black neighborhoods, dealing drugs, murdering, assaulting us black people.

I grew up in black (turning Hispanic) neighborhood in Milwaukee.
The only people dealing drugs, and all were my fellow black folks. The truth hurts.; 5/9/20, 9:14 AM
elkh1 said...: Trump should issue an executive order to set up the Innocent Project Commission headed by Flynn to look into prosecutors' malfeasance and free innocent people from jail.

How many Democrats dare to object to the Commission?; 5/9/20, 9:14 AM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Virtually all confessions are coerced. Unless a suspect up front and openly says he did it, the cops worked on him in some way or other.; 5/9/20, 9:17 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: What Dersh says sounds right.

That's what they did when I was practicing law.

There is a flip side to this, too. In Cook County, IL, no one wants to go to trial on a criminal case, but the state's attorneys really don't want to go to trial because it would overwhelm the court system. So almost everyone does a deal. Here is an abbreviated version:

Public Defender to client: "Keep your mouth shut."
Public defender to prosecutor: "He'll never plead with that gun charge enhancement. He didn't do it. He wasn't even there. His friend pulled the trigger, my guy was trying to stop him. The cops planted that gun. We'll go to trial."
State's Attorney: "OK. You know, the victim died. Your guy's prints are the only ones on that gun. Your guy could get life, even as an accessory."
PD: "We'll go to trial, then. He had nothing to do with that gun."
SA: "OK. One time sale--one year with credit for pre-trial time. No gun enhancement. He'll testify if we go to trial on his doofus buddy."
PD: "Done"

That's why more gun laws don't work. They are trade goods.; 5/9/20, 9:19 AM
Mark said...: Virtually all confessions are coerced. Unless a suspect up front and openly says he did it, the cops worked on him in some way or other.

Not at all. A LOT of perpetrators are knuckleheads. They do stupid stuff when committing the offense. And they do stupid stuff when they talk to the police about it. They think they can talk their way out of it. Or they think that what they think is insignificant is OK to admit and talk about it, when in fact it is a link in the chain toward proving the case.; 5/9/20, 9:22 AM
Mark said...: Although they have seen in on TV and in movies a thousand times, still many people who are arrested -- or pulled over on the road -- still do not have the sense to remain silent.

As the warning goes --

ANYTHING they say CAN and WILL be used against them. ANYTHING. WILL.

The innocent are as foolish in talking to the police as the guilty are.; 5/9/20, 9:25 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: By the way, in my example, the State's Attorney is lying when he says the guy's prints are on that gun. They haven't located the gun in the evidence room. It may have gone out the back door onto the street again.; 5/9/20, 9:26 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: And here it is folks. James Duane's classic lecture on why you should never talk to the police. This is well worth your time. You should show it to your family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE; 5/9/20, 9:29 AM
elkh1 said...: Otto, our system is based on politics: e.g. the Muller investigation, the Flynn railroad, the death sentence to #MeToo for the sake of Biden, the Title IX kangaroo courts to please feminist women, Weinstein's conviction of rape when he became a liability to the Democrats.; 5/9/20, 9:31 AM
Mark said...: By the way, in my example, the State's Attorney is lying when he says the guy's prints are on that gun.

Well, that may be standard in Chicago, but not anywhere I've been (Virginia). Particularly when you have discovery and don't have to rely on what the prosecutor says the evidence is. And at least some of that evidence has to be produced at the preliminary hearing.; 5/9/20, 9:35 AM
Mark said...: Look, no need to be just as bad and overstate the case here.

Probably 95 percent of the time or more, the investigation, arrest, and prosecution are all on the up and up. And most people on the enforcement side are good and honest.

That said, 95 percent is not all the time. And most people are not all people.

And it only takes a handful to ruin everything.; 5/9/20, 9:38 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: Mark--Cook County is like many urban counties, and probably worse than most. The criminal justice system barely functions. We are talking about a one hour conference to "resolve" (get rid of) the case.; 5/9/20, 9:44 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: And note that it is immaterial that the SA lied. It would only matter if the case was going to court and the gun had to be produced.; 5/9/20, 9:52 AM
Matt Sablan said...: I'd like to believe I'd have the wherewithal to tell a corrupt prosecutor, "Bring it," but I'll probably never know.; 5/9/20, 10:05 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: Dershowitz is a national treasure. So is Althouse, although we gotta tweak her views a bit on virology.....; 5/9/20, 10:05 AM
daskol said...: I'm still pretty convinced that the story that Flynn pled guilty because he loved his son is bullshit. Dershowitz popping in to make this a bigger case of hypocrisy doesn't persuade me otherwise, although it is amusing to see him make the outspoken "civil rights" types try to explain why they rail about coerced confessions but stay silent on the Flynn issue.; 5/9/20, 10:22 AM
RigelDog said...: Dershowitz is mistaken on an important point--he mentions that Flynn was presumably unaware that the FBI had the transcript of his conversation with the Russian ambassador when he was being interviewed (although Flynn didn't think it was an interview because they lied about that; he thought he was being briefed as a part of being on the transition team). In fact, Flynn mentions at one point to the agents that he assumes that they know all about the phone call because he knows such communications from Russian ambassadors would be routinely listened in on. This fact is important because it is virtual proof that Flynn did not intentionally lie about the content of his conversation with the ambassador.; 5/9/20, 10:37 AM
daskol said...: Yes: of course Flynn knows about NSA listening capabilities. The story as currently told does not add up.; 5/9/20, 10:39 AM
daskol said...: The notion that Flynn was some naif in terms of internecine struggles in the bureaucracy is absurd. He'd been in many such battles, coming out on top but also having his ass handed to him. He was an aggressive advocate for radical reform of intelligence gathering and analysis, and he'd even involved himself previously on behalf of an FBI agent on loan to his DIA in her internal struggles. The story apparently is that Flynn is stupid and naive, and of course loves his son. I believe half of that, but it's not enough to explain his plea.; 5/9/20, 10:42 AM
RigelDog said...: It's impossible to make an informed decision to plead guilty when you haven't had a chance to see the evidence the government has. Here, the FBI withheld extensive evidence that was favorable to Flynn---a clear violation of Brady rules of discovery. I would have been fired and dis-barred if I had failed to disclose such information to a defendant pre-trial. Additionally, I would have been in jail for contempt of court if I had then continued to hide the exculpatory evidence despite having been explicitly ordered multiple times by a judge to produce it. All of this illegal and unethical conduct is astounding, absolutely astounding, and sickening.; 5/9/20, 10:49 AM
Birkel said...: daskol,

And bankrupt.
That means his wife has nothing.; 5/9/20, 10:49 AM
RigelDog said...: The story apparently is that Flynn is stupid and naive, and of course loves his son. I believe half of that, but it's not enough to explain his plea.)))

He wasn't stupid or naive. He was presented with evidence that was spun against him and even fabricated (the altered 302 reports), and he did not know about the existence of exculpatory evidence that has just come to light. Faced with the evidence against him at the time, it made for a close case and a huge gamble if he had gone to trial, innocent or not. Throw in the fact that he was dead-broke and that they threatened to go after his son--and that his counsel at the time may not have actually been a faithful advocate--and his decision to plead guilty was rational.; 5/9/20, 10:55 AM
Big Mike said...: A bunch of threads ago Farmer and I were arguing whether Barack Obama deserved to be listed among the worst Presidents in history, with Farmer arguing that Obama was merely a “status quo” President while I placed him among the very worst. But it is increasingly clear that Obama was not merely an incurious and inept bystander while underlings concocted the “Russia! Russia! Russia!” hoax and the railroading of Flynn, but was right in the middle of it. And that has to make him second only to James Buchanan among the very worst Presidents. Since the election of 1800 our tradition has been that the outgoing President swallows his disappointment and supports the transition. Before Obama the only President who had done otherwise was Buchanan, whose administration shipped cannons and muskets to Southern armories on the eve of the Civil War.

Obama’s abetting the Never Trump conspirators needs to be added to his other big sins: not ordering Hillary Clinton to use her dot-gov Email account or else tender her letter of resignation, the openly anti-small business regulations embedded in Obamacare, the “if you like your healthcare plan ...” lie, clowning around with the pretty blonde Danish PM at the funeral of the Prime Minister of Poland, and, of course, his 2009 “stimulus” that stimulated exactly nothing. Second worst President, no question.; 5/9/20, 10:58 AM
Yancey Ward said...: I was an alternate juror on the original trial from 2000 in this particular case. It the first and only time I had a close up view of a criminal investigation and trial. It was eye-opening. The young man basically got himself convicted by talking to the police and writing letters to his girlfriend from jail after his arrest. He was definitely guilty of the charge (felony murder), but it would have been a harder case to make without his own words being used against him.; 5/9/20, 11:00 AM
RigelDog said...: Howard notes, in a conclusory, incorrect, and divisive fashion, "Now that it has happened to it rich white person once rather than thousands of poor black men you people are upset."

I'm upset anytime the justice system is unjust, not the least when the victims are poor and powerless. My entire career as a prosecutor was spent trying to uphold justice and act on behalf of crime victims. I'm married to another career prosecutor who has the same values and ethics. Something upwards of 70% of the crime victims we fight for belong to minority groups, and most of them are also poor. BTW the use of the phrase "you people" is problematic.; 5/9/20, 11:05 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Mark,
"And it only takes a handful to ruin everything."

It's not so much that there is a handful of bad police/prosecutors/etc., it's that when they are found out, it's rare that anything significant happens to them.; 5/9/20, 11:39 AM
Jupiter said...: Earl Warren.; 5/9/20, 11:43 AM
Char Char Binks, Esq. said...: Loose talk that gets someone convicted is not the same as a confession.; 5/9/20, 11:56 AM
Darrell said...: Never talk to cops. Always get a lawyer.

And make sure Eric Holder doesn't work at your lawyer's lawfirm. And make sure your lawyer hasn't been co-opted by the FBI and isn't feeding you bad advice.; 5/9/20, 12:52 PM
daskol said...: Flynn wasn't a typical defendant in any respect, and the plot against him was transparently part of an attack on the President--obvious to all of us, and therefore obvious also to Flynn (and Trump) at that time. Evaluating what an ordinary defendant would do in other circumstances strikes me as inappropriate when trying to interpret the Flynn plea.; 5/9/20, 3:09 PM
Mark Jones said...: Diogenes of Sinope said, "Given a choice between our current plea bargain legal system and a 100% every trial goes to a jury system with all the problems that would bring, our system would be far better without any plea bargains."

He is absolutely right. Plea bargains are too easily abused. That's why some nations forbid them. I, too, would rather see every prosecution tried in court. No plea bargains. One of the beneficial side effects of such a rule would be forcing the government, which has deep but not infinite pockets, a) to choose which cases they really wish to prosecute, b) choose which cases they can't afford to prosecute and drop them, and c) do it in the open, in court. Not in side rooms where they squeeze a defendant with threats of destroying him financially, or destroying family and friends, unless he succumbs to their extortion.; 5/9/20, 4:37 PM