Teen turns down plea deal for 25 years in prison, gets 65 years instead

and also I think in what we are talking about not a true one.

 

How so? Justice is not blind. It sees money and treads more carefully. Anyone that thinks we don't have a two (or even three) tiered justice system is just not paying attention.

 

OP

Despite the BBC's weird definition of 'boy' being any male upto and including age 18, males stop being children at 10 years old, so the OP mention that the subject of this story is 'a child' is totally misleading.

 

97% of criminal cases in the US do not go to trial. This has created the situation where people and black people in particular are told that whether or not they have committed the crime they are being charged with if they do not accept the plea they will go to jail for an enormous amount longer or even be killed by the State. This has resulted in people accepting pleas whether they are guilty or not.

When I saw this case where the man who was a minor at the time of the crime was offered 25 years and chose to go to trial and received 65 the first thing I thought of was that the they are trying to let all other blacks know there is no point in going to trial. If you do they will destroy you.

Only in 3% of criminal cases does the US have a trial in court. Most people in the US whether innocent or guilty who are imprisoned for a criminal case are imprisoned without trial. This is not justice and belongs much more to fascist states.

Plea Bargaining in the United States: A Perversion Of Justice

 

Sorry, I am very uncomfortable with the law and the sentence. The guy smiles when he is nervous as a defense mechanism. Its probably a habit he developed before puberty hit to seem tough in street situations and around authority. Nope.. smiling at inappropriate times in front of a judge ought not provide 10 years to 25 years to someone's sentence. If that smile was impactful, then the judge should be ashamed. 65 years for a juvenile hanging around and and NOT shooting anyone while the officer who does the shooting and the victim who did some shooting are neither held legally accountable for the death is outrageous. One possible reason the state zealously pursued this particular charge to plea or conviction, was to help inoculate the city from defending a possible civil suit. Once someone is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, civil courts are bound by that conclusion as a finding, secondary to a lesser evidentiary burden in its jurisdiction.

 

Police tend to over-charge people and the prosecutor agrees to let them plead guilty to lesser charges. Happens every day.

Now some are just plain guilty such as this bunch of perps. They shot at the cops while trying to get away. Throw the book at them .... no problem.

My only issue with this case is being charged with murder when no murder occurred.

 

My only interest in this particular case is that he was offered a 25 year sentence with plea bargaining and then received a 65 year sentence in court. This has to be seen within the context that police can arrest people (and it is blacks who suffer the most on this) and charge them with anything whether or not they are guilty and they always tell them that if they do not accept this they will go to jail for far longer and maybe even killed. This has resulted in almost everyone accepting these plea bargains whether or not they are guilty.

This case looked to me that they young man was possibly being used as a lesson to show the others not to come to court. Accept imprisonment without trial. That is why I put up this thread.

Now you may have missed this as I added it later so I will put it again.

Plea Bargaining in the United States: A Perversion Of Justice

 

The moral of this story is that if you are part of a group going to break into a house make sure that you kill all possible eye witnesses in that house before they kill one of you

 

I'm not so bothered by him getting more time by going to trial per se', but with them being charged with murder while no murder was committed.

It goes without saying that he would not have been looking at so much time except for the murder charge.

Guess we just have a different focus. That's fine. It's not really any disagreement.

 

You are of course entitled to what interested you and I did find that interesting when you first came in and there are other issues of the case which I could be interested in. However without even getting into them I saw the broken records of 'liberals this' coming in so I am wanting to keep this focused as much on the OP as possible.

and although other issues may well be worth discussing I would like to keep this thread focused on this. Otherwise I suspect it will just become a broken record of hundreds of other threads and this is an important issue which ought to be of interest to most Americans.

 

Occupational hazard, I guess?

 

I'm not against plea bargaining as a tool to keep from clogging up the courts. An incentive of less time is a reasonable carrot to offer. It is subject to abuse, as with most things.

Your concern, I believe, is misapplied in this case. These guys were caught at the scene. They are definitely not innocent.

It seems you are shocked with 25 years offered pre-trial turning into 65 years after the trial. This is where my concern intersects as 65 years would not have been possible without the murder charge with no murder having taken place.

Not trying to derail your thread, but if you really want to be shocked, check out some of the petty crimes people have been sentenced to life for under the 3 strikes and your out laws.

 

The stealing of a piece of pizza resulting in a life sentence is the result of your 3 strikes is out of course a different issue.

Yes, the issue is about the reality that this system is open to imprisonment without trial when one has not committed a crime and also to people being charged a higher charge than is appropriate. Only 3% of your criminals are not tried. The other 97% come to an agreement through plea bargaining. I hear this results in police being able to charge people with anything and telling them that if they do not agree they will get much worse in court and for this people who have not even committed any crime agreeing to face decades in prison rather than go to court and have the fair and free trial they are supposed to be entitled to (I think even the same crime can result in different charges so they could also be pulling the hardest or even exaggerated charge) I would say though it saves money your justice system is up the creek!! One research study I looked at suggested that around 10% of Americans were admitting guilt when they were innocent - when you add on top of this that they are usually charged with the highest possible crime, which may be what you are noticing, those accepting the deal may well be doing so when they would receive a better result in a free and fair count.

and yes, it was because this man, a child when he committed the crime and as you rightly say in no way a murderer in any sense which would normally be seen, refuses the 25 year deal and gets the 65 in court instead. It looked to me that this might be a warning and a reminder to in particular black Americans not to demand your day in court even if you are innocent. I am not saying he is innocent but this could also have a difference resulting in a lessor sentence for him and others challenging it in court.

When you put money above justice, justice is what loses.

What also has to be born in mind is that you have created basically a system of imprisonment without trial. It is all arranged easily to be taken over by any fascist government though as I also said Chris Hedges believes it already is in use against black people.

 

I woild say it's more class than race. The poor rely on public defenders. Those with money may hire an attorney. Of course, a good attorney is a whole 'nother price range.

You should note that there are many black judges in our court systems. Focusing on race too much gives a skewed view.

 

You could be right there. I saw a video of some black activist talking about just waiting for poor white people to come and join them and wondering whether it will ever happen. Though I do believe Hedges is right that it is particularly true of blacks even if this is just due to no of arrests.

However it does put your justice system in connection with criminals far from just and leaves it wide open to further abuse if you move further authoritarian, if the checks and balances everyone believes are not so firm as people believe they are, which clearly as far as your criminal justice system is concerned, they are not.

 

I knew it wouldn’t be long before some worthless conservative viewpoint was spewed all over this thread.

You do the crime you do the time. Except he didn’t do the crime and now he’s doing a ridiculous amount of time.

He got 65 years for being present during the events. Paint him as a thug all you want but that’s the basic reality.

 

And I knew it wouldn't be long before some worthless liberal viewpoint would come in here crying about the conviction of a piece of trash.

 

He was part of the group, and he had a part in the murder.

Can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Case closed.

 

More liberal apologies for a man who was in a group of people that committed a murder.

He deserved what he got.

 

Try reading what it is about before coming in with your answer to any thread on this because your answer has nothing to do with the thread.

 

More conservative excuses for a judge with a God complex and an another DA trying to impress potential voters for a ride to the AG's office. See, we can both throw stereotypes around .

 

Or we can just get straight to the fact that liberals defend murderers and other criminal types.

This is the ideology of those who allow violent criminal illegal aliens to steal firearms and shoot people on piers....and find them innocent.

Remember the cause when it's your turn.

 

Don't feel bad for him. He had many opportunities to change the outcome, both before and after the crime.

 

Or we can get straight to the fact that conservatives reward a God complex in killer cops, promotes and supports the arming of murderers and rapists and shrugs off mass genocide of children in schools all across this country with nothing more than an 'our prayers are with you' program .

See I can write partisan crap like that too

 

Junkieturtle please read a bit of the thread. This thread is not about whether he deserved the sentence. This thread is about the reality that 97% of Americans never have a trial in court - one of the things that was originally seen as imperative for justice. What happens is that they can be charged with anything and then are told that they have a choice. They can accept it and get whatever or go to the court and get much much more. Due to this most Americans arrested for criminal cases never see a court. Ten percent of those who accept the plea are apparently innocent. That was why I was interested in this case and that is what the op is about. Could it be that this is actually being used as a lesson to let particularly black people know that if they go to court they will end up with a far, far worse sentence.

It also suggests your justice system is working on imprisonment without trial and very much up for abuse.

That is what it is about nothing to do with whether someone thought he should or should not get the sentence. Please read a bit more if you have any interest. I am not interested in a thread which there are thousands of on this forum which is just a spat of different political leanings.