Plea Bargains

As the United States Supreme Court has recently acknowledged, 97% of all criminal charges, give or take a percentage or two, are resolved through plea bargaining. Plea bargaining is the process of dickering with the county attorney over what the defendant should plead to and what the sentence should be realizing that the court does not have to follow a sentencing recommendation. Defense attorneys often initiate plea negotiations early in the process, acquiesce quickly to any reasonably sounding offer, convince their client it is the best deal he will get, and voila, done and out. Never take the first offer. You may not get a better offer, but you don't know that. Tell the prosecutor that you and your client will have to discuss it. If the case is a triable one, or if the client is in jail, don't waive speedy trial. In Iowa the State has 90 days to try a defendant from the date of the filing of the trial information. It is not unheard of that the closer the 90-day deadline approaches the better the offer becomes. Defense attorneys must realize that prosecutors are overworked. Just look at the amount of crime they must deal with--its overwhelming. On the day set for trial, it is possible that a prosecutor may have several trials scheduled. He or she can't try them all. Interestingly, female prosecutors are often more difficult to deal with than male prosecutors. This does not seem to hold true for judges. But back to plea bargaining, at some point during the process defense counsel should tell the prosecutor what his client will plead to and the penalty that the prosecutor should recommend to the court in return for the plea. All the while plan on trying the case. Have it set for trial and do the things necessary to try it. A defendant can always plead guilty, even in the middle of a trial. The court can not not take a guilty plea. No need to be in a hurry about any of this, justice is slow and time is always on the side of the defendant. Don't be afraid to try a case even if you know you will lose. There are several reasons for this. First, the prosecutors learn quickly that you aren't bluffing when you say you will go to trial. Secondly, they may not be giving you anything with the offer they have made. At trial, the defendant becomes a person in the eyes of the court, not just another file. The judge relating to the defendant as a person can often have salutary effects. It is not unheard of that a court give a defendant less of a sentence after trial than it would have with an agreed upon disposition. Third, trials are fun. So, before you take a deal, sit on it for awhile. Maybe you will get a better one.

Trial by Jury

Court service days are those days in court where defendants appear for matters that take little time such as arraignments, pretrial conferences, uncontested motions, etc. These terms are not self-explanatory, but attorneys practicing criminal law will understand the process. The courtrooms are full of defendants and attorneys waiting to plead guilty, plead not guilty, negotiate a reasonable disposition of the case, or to take care of other matters that may present themselves none of which take more than a few minutes. What becomes obvious with only a few minutes observation is that the vast majority of defendants plead guilty to something--either the original charge or some lesser included offense. This observation is reinforced when discussing a new charge with a new client and asking about his previous criminal history and if ever he has gone to trial on anything. The answer, with very few exceptions, is the person has never gone to trial but always plead guilty to the original charge or some lesser included offense. Most often the reason is to be released from jail since bond could not be made. Often times it is simply to get it over with. Criminal charges are disruptive, anxiety producing, and expensive even for those with unlimited leisure. The criminal justice system is a factory production. It produces compliance and revenue; the perfect combination. What is apparent, however, is that this system operates only because of the cooperation of defense attorneys and defendants. We as a group are complicit in this organized assault on our clients. If, on one day, on one court service day, each and every defendant said "I'm not pleading, I want a trial", the criminal justice system would implode. No court could withstand the onslaught of trials; they simply could not be scheduled. Prosecutors would be incapable of rational thought wandering about the halls asking themselves what to do. Court attendants and clerks would be staring about in wonderment. Law enforcement would be spending their vacations and off duty times waiting endless hours at the courthouse to testify. It is amazing just to think about. The chances that this vision would ever become reality borders on zero. There is no economic impetus for a trial. Defense attorneys lose money going to trial. Defendants incur costs they cannot afford. Family, friends, and associates called to testify grumble over the imposition. It is all very disadvantageous. From observing the run-of-the-mill defense attorneys there is little interest in trying any case unless the defendant actually insists on a trial. In a county such as Jasper, where you may have one jury trial a quarter but hundreds of criminal charges, something is askew.