Let’s get back to the Amicus Briefs that I mentioned in a very
early post. The next few posts here on
my blog will be excerpts from these briefs, highlighting some of the corruption
in the system here in my town:
“Unfortunately, such creative
thinking (speaking of teaching cops to be creative in their “work” that was
mentioned in a previous post) has resulted in far more than an increase of
sexual assault prosecutions. The prosecution's use of the media, creative
reporting, and other divisive tactics, while effective in advancing political
careers and agendas, has added significantly to an increase of prosecutorial
misconduct in the First District Court of Cache County.
The juries are finding these guys guilty? A Research
Summary conducted for Bureau of Assistance U.S. Department of Justice, dated
January 24, 201 1, revealed three specific findings that reflect the
prosecutions in the First District Court of Cache County. l) The overwhelming
majority (90 to 95 percent) of cases result in plea bargaining. 2)
Prosecutorial discretion in plea bargaining is known to cause discrepancies in
sentencing outcomes. 3) Those who go to trial rather than accept a plea are
more likely to receive harsher sentences.
Plea bargaining is the primary instrument used in
prosecuting cases in the First District Court of Cache County! As such, the
Court should take note of the cautionary summary included in the Missouri Law
Review Vol. 64 Iss. 2 119991 Art. 2 which states, "We've created a system
that appears to work only because defendants accused of [sexual abuse]
typically don't fully appreciate the risk of the reluctant complainant because
they are represented by either inexperienced attorneys, attorneys who are not
very good and therefore are desperate for work, or over worked public
defenders. That doesn't sound like much of a criminal "justice "
system to me. If the defense attorneys fully appreciate the risk of the
reluctant complainant, few would plea bargain [sex abuse] cases, especially
single complainant [sexual abuse] cases. But who 's the real loser then? ...
Now I worry about [abuse] victims who will come forward, typically as a lone
complainant, who will be forced to undergo the trauma of having to testify in
court, of having to relive their experience and be subjected to
cross-examination, only to have the defendant acquitted - all because the
criminal justice system, as currently structured, penalizes defendants who plea
bargain [such] cases. Have we created a new class of "silent victims,
victims of
a criminal justice system that in its righteous rush to convict [molesters/
fails to consider the long term chilling effect its rules have upon a
defendant's incentive to plea bargain? Maybe the criminal justice system isn't
the right place to deal with the problem... '
”
More to come…
Please help us fight this corrupt system with the help of our new attorney--Thanks very much! www.crowdrise.com/igavefirstcanyougive/fundraiser/bauninilson
No comments:
Post a Comment