-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 0
/
plea-sentence.html
223 lines (199 loc) · 13.9 KB
/
plea-sentence.html
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
<!--This is a basic template for bootstrap, which links to the bootstrap stylesheet I modified it from this http://getbootstrap.com/examples/starter-template/# -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<!-- The above 3 meta tags *must* come first in the head; any other head content must come *after* these tags -->
<meta name="description" content="System favoring plea deals penalizes defendants who exercise their constitutional right to go trial, professor says">
<meta name="author" content="">
<link rel="icon" href="../../favicon.ico">
<!-- METRICS -->
<meta name="parsely-title" content="Rejecting plea deal means longer sentence if convicted, data shows" />
<meta name="parsely-link" content="http://cnsmaryland.org/interactives/spring-2018/plea-bargain/plea-sentence.html" />
<meta name="parsely-type" content="post" />
<meta name="parsely-pub-date" content="2018-12-21T13:00:00Z" />
<meta name="parsely-section" content="Investigations" />
<meta name="parsely-author" content="CNS Maryland" />
<meta name="parsely-tags" content="crime, investigative journalism, interactives" />
<!--Facebook OpenGraph-->
<meta property="fb:app_id" content="209502139105366" />
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Rejecting plea deal means longer sentence if convicted, data shows">
<meta property="og:url" content="http://cnsmaryland.org/interactives/spring-2018/plea-bargain/plea-sentence.html">
<meta property="og:site_name" content="CNS Maryland">
<meta property="og:description" content="System favoring plea deals penalizes defendants who exercise their constitutional right to go trial, professor says">
<meta property="og:image" content="http://cnsmaryland.org/interactives/spring-2018/plea-bargain/assets/main-social.png" />
<meta property="og:image:width" content="1000" />
<meta property="og:image:height" content="600" />
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_US" />
<!--Twitter -->
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@cnsmaryland">
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@cnsmaryland">
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Rejecting plea deal means longer sentence if convicted, data shows">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="System favoring plea deals penalizes defendants who exercise their constitutional right to go trial, professor says">
<meta name="twitter:domain" content="CNS Maryland">
<meta name="twitter:image" content="http://cnsmaryland.org/interactives/spring-2018/plea-bargain/assets/main-social.png" />
<title>Rejecting plea deal means longer sentence if convicted, data show</title>
<!-- Bootstrap core CSS, which has been minified for faster load. You can USE the styles in this stylesheet, but NEVER EDIT THIS FILE-->
<link href="css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
<!-- Custom styles for this template -->
<!--Put all of your custom styles in here. Notice it comes below the core boostrap.min.css (core files). The order is important-->
<link href="css/customstyles.css" rel="stylesheet">
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=PT+Sans:400,700|PT+Serif:400,700" rel="stylesheet">
<!-- These are special files that make all the fancy new stuff work in older versions of Internet Explorer-->
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/html5shiv/3.7.2/html5shiv.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/respond/1.4.2/respond.min.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
</head>
<body>
<nav class="navbar navbar-inverse navbar-fixed-top"><!--beginning of navbar-->
<div class="container">
<div class="navbar-header">
<button type="button" class="navbar-toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbar" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="navbar">
<span class="sr-only">Toggle navigation</span>
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
</button>
<a class="navbar-brand" href="index.html">Trading Away Justice</a>
</div>
<div id="navbar" class="collapse navbar-collapse">
<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
<li><a href="about.html">About</a></li>
<li><a href="yourstory.html">Tell us your story</a></li>
</ul>
</div><!--/.nav-collapse -->
</div>
</nav><!--end of navbar-->
<div class="head-strip">
<div class="container">
<div class="col-sm-8 col-sm-offset-1 block-text">
<div class="block-dateline">Maryland</div>
<div class="article-headline">Rejecting plea deal means longer sentence if convicted, data show</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="container">
<div class="article">
<!--<img class="map" src="assets/maryland.png">-->
<div class="row text-container">
<div class="col-md-8 col-sm-offset-1 block-text">
<img class="block-img" src="assets/baltimore/steven-grossman.png">
<div class="caption">Steven Grossman, a University of Baltimore law professor, says the courts have become "a system of plea deals." Capital News Service photo by Kaitlyn Hopkins.</div>
<div class="byline">By Shruti Bhatt, Angela Roberts and Nora Eckert</div>
<div class="byline-organization">Capital News Service</div>
<div class="byline-date">December 21, 2018</div>
<div class="article-text">
<p>
BALTIMORE — Defendants who reject plea bargains and are convicted when they choose to go to trial for many types of crimes face longer sentences – sometimes substantially longer – than defendants who make a deal, a Capital News Service analysis shows.
</p>
<p>
For example, the average sentence for defendants who pleaded not guilty but were later convicted of unlawful possession of drugs was seven times longer than those who pleaded guilty, the CNS analysis of Baltimore City court records found. People who pleaded not guilty and went to trial received, on average, sentences of 2 years and 10 months. People who accepted plea bargains were sentenced to about 4 months.
</p>
<p>
Those pleas save the state the time and cost of a trial. But courts are essentially “punishing people who are exercising a constitutional right, which is the right to trial,” said Steven P. Grossman, professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law.
</p>
<p>
The gap in sentences was greater for less serious crimes, the CNS analysis showed, but the difference nearly disappeared in cases involving more serious charges.
</p>
<p>
For example, defendants who were convicted at trial of possessing a gun in connection with a felony received sentences only about 5 percent longer – 5 years as opposed to 4 years, 10 months – than people who accepted a plea bargain on the same charges, the CNS analysis showed.
</p>
<div class="section-header">‘A SYSTEM OF PLEA DEALS’</div>
<p>
Grossman, who was a New York City district attorney before he became a professor, says plea bargaining has been common for more than a century. “We are not a system of trials,” he said. “We are a system of of plea deals.”
</p>
<p>
He said judges and courts don’t see plea bargaining as a bad alternative but as “giving people a break for pleading guilty.”
</p>
<div class="video-block">
<iframe width="100%" height="400" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zNP9wlrcmJo?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<div class="video-title">"If you didn't get less time for pleading guilty, why not take a shot at a trial...you have nothing to lose," said Steven P. Grossman, professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Capital News Service video by Graham Cullen.</div>
</div>
<p>
Courts are essentially “punishing people who are exercising a constitutional right, which is the right to trial,” said Grossman. “But, because courts wouldn’t admit to this, they come up with all these absurd reasons for why they give people less time.”
In Maryland and around the country, courts are overwhelmed with cases and more than 90 percent of cases end in plea bargains instead of trials.
</p>
<p>
So, why do people plead guilty? Grossman said anyone with the fundamental understanding of human nature would know why.
</p>
<p>
“They plead guilty because they want less time, which is what you would do or what I would do. The lawyers tell them they will get less time,” he said. “The only way plea bargaining works is if we give defendants less time if they plead guilty and more time if they go to trial.”
</p>
<p>
In a 2018 Nevada Law Journal article called “Making the Evil Less Necessary and the Necessary Less Evil: Towards a More Honest and Robust System of Plea Bargaining,” Grossman wrote that the trial penalty presents challenges in at least two kinds of cases.
</p>
<p>
The first, Grossman said, comes in cases where defendants were given “significantly harsher penalties after trial than they were offered in a plea bargain.” And the second arises in cases in which the “defendant who was convicted after a trial receives greater sentence than his co-defendants with similar or worse criminal records who were equal or more primary participants.”
</p>
<p>
<div class="section-header">ALLOWING JUDGES TO BE MORE INVOLVED</div>
</p>
<p>
Grossman suggested judges should be more involved in the process by letting defendants know the range of sentences likely if convicted at trial.
</p>
<p>
Judges are wary of offering such information, Grossman said, for fear of appearing to be coercing a defendant into take a plea deal. Such cases likely would be reversed on appeal.
</p>
<p>
But Grossman said judges could still help the defendant understand what his options are without being coercive.
</p>
<p>
If the defense attorney and defendant ask a judge what the range of sentences would be if found guilty, Grossman said the judge shouldn’t withhold that information.
</p>
<p>
“These defendants are making the most important decision of their lives, about whether they should plead guilty or not,” Grossman said. “They’re being told what they’re going to get if they plead guilty. But they’re not being told what they get if they go to trial. So they make the decision with half a basketful of information that they need to make an educated decision.”
</p>
<p>
Grossman said he would have judges offer information only if the defendant asks. And then, “I would give the judges the authority to tell defendants at least the range of sentences they’re thinking about, the factors they’re going to consider if they go to trial.”
</p>
<p>
“I see nothing wrong with that,” Grossman said. “If I was a defendant, I would want to know that. But defendants are not being told that in their own interest, because we don’t want to coerce the. That’s paternalism, I think, at its worst.”
</p>
<div class="contribution-line">This story was made possible in part by the generous support of the Park Foundation.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="footer">
<div id="sponsors">
<img class="sponsor" src="assets/cns.png">
<img class="sponsor" src="assets/injustice.png">
<img class="sponsor" src="assets/pbs.jpg">
<div class="clear-space"></div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- Bootstrap core JavaScript
================================================== -->
<!-- Placed at the end of the document so the pages load faster -->
<!--All of these links below make interactivity, which we'll add later, work. This-->
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<!--This is the core boostrap javascript file this is the original, but we need to correct the path-->
<script src="js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
<!-- IE10 viewport hack for Surface/desktop Windows 8 bug -->
<script src="../../assets/js/ie10-viewport-bug-workaround.js"></script>
<!-- Go to www.addthis.com/dashboard to customize your tools --> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=ra-4ebd6107389ae315"></script>
<!-- METRICS -->
<!-- START Parse.ly Include: Standard -->
<div id="parsely-root" style="display: none">
<span id="parsely-cfg" data-parsely-site="cnsmaryland.org"></span>
</div>
<script>
(function(s, p, d) {
var h=d.location.protocol, i=p+"-"+s,
e=d.getElementById(i), r=d.getElementById(p+"-root"),
u=h==="https:"?"d1z2jf7jlzjs58.cloudfront.net"
:"static."+p+".com";
if (e) return;
e = d.createElement(s); e.id = i; e.async = true;
e.src = h+"//"+u+"/p.js"; r.appendChild(e);
})("script", "parsely", document);
</script>
<!-- END Parse.ly Include: Standard -->
</body>
</html>