Ask Howard Treesong About Law or Lawyering

[Adebisi]

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I think this has much more to do with the fact that prosecutors are largely overwhelmed and thus only choose to prosecute cases they think they can win, and plea everything else.

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So, if criminal defendants stopped entering into plea bargains with prosecutors, you think the conviction rate would go WAY down? Why don't more people just take their chances at trial? If a defendant has 10% chance of getting 5 years and a 90% of walking, why would he accept any plea that would give him a criminal conviction on his record for the rest of his life?

It just seems like something is really off with the system. The notion that it would be better for 100 guilty men to go free than for 1 innocent man to go to jail seems to have disappeared completely from our court system.