1. people list their houses at prices they don’t really think they’ll get. prosecutors charge cases higher than they think they’re worth and hope to beat out a plea. sometimes it doesn’t work, and we go to trial on an attempted murder that is really an assault.
2. prosecutors do hate losing, but if the case is just ‘overcharged”, they don’t officially “lose” so longas they get a felony conviction. So, again, charge a bar fight as attempted murder, the exposure is life in prison, you get a conviction of assault, the exposure is 4 years in prison, the guy gets out on probation, the prosecutor will claim he “won”, the public defender will calim he kicked the prosecutor’s butt, and the juror’s will wonder why this couldnt have been worked out without a trial.
3. most cases are overcharged! but then again, this is all a matter of opinion an dpersonal values, liek the price of a house or any other value judgment. laywers and judges sometimes talk about the “value” of a case, “he’s good at figuring out how mucha case is worth”, but of course, it’s all nonsense. It’s “value” is dependent on so many variables, inclduing but not limited to the risk aversion of the defendant, the skill of the lawyers, the facts, the judge, the nature of the charge, whetehr witnesses could be tracked down, the defendant’s record and its affect on his ability to testify, and so forth.
4. my wife would be quite excellent at getting out of jury duty. She think I (and the system) are complete nonsense. Hopefully she wont be held in contempt next time she’s called down for jury duy.
5. the system isn’t nonsense. but it is scary!
6. Most people charged witha c rime probably are guilty of something. Maybe something lesser. Of course, the issue really isn’t whetehr most or almost all or virtually all people charged witha c rime are guilty. the issue is how generous youare going to be with your definition of reaosnable doubt. Do you think it’s betetr to let 10 guilty men go free than to put an innocent one in prison. What about 100? 1,000? 1,000,000? you’ll definitely freak out the proseuctor if you tell him it would be better to let a million guilty people go free than to let one inncoent man fester in priosn! I can virtually guarantee you’ll get kicked for that one. And yet that’s about where I would put my personal error rate. there can be no doubt –no reasonable doubt, and if you’re a reaonable person, any doubt you have is a reaosnable doubt — and if you have an doubt — no matter how tiny, or seemingly impossible, then you ust acquit, if you follwo the law. Otherwise, some inncoent people are going to get ground up int he system. Start talking aboutt his with the lawyers and you’ll freak someone out.
